Trapped
by Shadsie
Summary: This is the tale of a heart and mind caught between loyalties; the old, the new and the pursuit of knowledge. This is the tale of a series of tragic mistakes. Entrapta - from "death" through survival, through resurrection and redemption. (Season 1 only story).
1. It's All Over but the Crying

_Notes: This fan fiction has / will have a storyline that is likely to be debunked as soon as future material is presented in canon. It is based entirely upon events in the first season of the show, written in a time when only the first season has been released. If you somehow dredge it up after future seasons of the show have happened and you see it not matching with canon events, please keep this in mind and consider this story an alternate universe. Darker than canon because of descriptions of wounds and death (a trait of many of my stories for other fandoms). I also like trying to explain things that don't make much sense and pointing out animation-errors._

 _Entrapta's "real name" in this story comes from the apparent real name of the original 80s character gleaned from a Masters of the Universe characters list._

* * *

 **Trapped**

 **Chapter 1: It's All Over but the Crying**

They stared in stunned silence. The remainder of the Alliance was well and securely out of the shaft. Even well away from it, they could feel the heat emanating from it.

They'd felt the convection radiating through the blast-doors as they'd made their way through each successive port. It reminded Bow of a forge and he had muttered something along the lines of "Why does the Horde design things this way?!" To which Entrapta had explained that it made perfect sense to her: The incoming cargo-chests off the skiffs would have to be purged of contaminants, biological and possibly magical. High-temperatures were also great for getting rid of anything earthen or sticky that could gum up anything with gears, as long as none of the parts of anything they brought in that came through the kiln-ports was made of lesser-metals.

The Horde's equipment would come in clean once it went through the flame-wash, and it worked in reverse for anything outgoing – all-in-all, a pretty effective security system in place to keep any escaped prisoners from hijacking a skiff (that is, if they didn't know the Fright Zone like the backs of their hands like Adora did, weren't intuitive master-hackers like Entrapta or weren't reprogrammed Horde robots with the ports' programming knowledge within their databanks like Emily). In other words, once the ports were sealed and the flame jets were deployed, hardware passed through and anything organic was toast.

Bow, Mermista, Sea Hawk and Perfuma might have taken a moment to appreciate such an interesting system if one of their friends wasn't getting cremated alive by it right now.

The final gate had just slammed shut as Entrapta looked back helplessly. She'd rushed back in, intent upon saving her robot, one that supposedly had some delicate software and lesser-metal components – or at the very least wasn't something she wanted to leave in the Fright Zone. The blast-doors slid up before she could make another move. As her eyes locked one last time with everyone else's, she seemed to know what was coming. Bow knew what someone's eyes looked like when they were afraid.

The worst thing about it was the smell. Just a few seconds later, after the fire flushed through the cracks, the stench of burning hair filled the immediate atmosphere.

The four survivors waited. They were shocked, of course, but moreover, each of them exchanged glances, each one telling the other that they were all waiting for the exact same thing.

No screams of pain came.

They both hoped and dreaded to hear sounds of unfiltered agony. It would be awful, but it would mean that Entrapta was alive and could possibly be saved – if they could find a way to get the door open and retrieve her.

The minutes ticked by and all was silence. The minutes ticked by and they knew that they had to jump into a skiff or risk death, possibly worse, for themselves. They had to pick up Glimmer and Adora – provided Adora was successful. No princess left behind – that was their mission…

…Well, except a single casualty of war, now.

Sea Hawk steered the skiff, looking only ahead, around the Fright Zone barrens. No one spoke and no tears were shed yet. Everyone was too full of adrenaline. Eyes and jaws were set in defiance. Muscles were stiff. Hearts were numb.

"Thank the Universe!" Perfuma called out upon seeing two running figures in the distance, traversing the wastes.

"There they are!" Bow cried, He pointed as Sea Hawk lowered the skiff. There was Glimmer – party dress torn and a little worse for wear, and She-Ra, scuffed up in her own right. It wasn't clear if she had the Sword of Protection, but she must have in order to be She-Ra. The thing seemed to disappear into magical dimensional pocket sometimes, at random.

As soon as the two got up on the skiff, Glimmer immediately gave Bow a bear-hug. She laughed. He sighed her name, grateful that she was alive. She looked tired, so tired.

The joy was short lived. Bow, Mermista, Perfuma and Sea Hawk watched uncomfortably as She-Ra's eyes scanned over them and caught that someone was missing. They all thought the same thing at once. It was never easy to give bad news.

"Wait… Where's Entrapta?" She-Ra asked nervously.

A collective pause. Downcast eyes.

Sea Hawk concentrated on steering. Mermista was about to talk, but gently bit her tongue. Perfuma silently thanked Bow for broaching the subject.

"Entrapta didn't make it."

Glimmer was the first to cry. Tears welled up in her eyes in an instant. Bow was unsurprised. The rest of them might have carried on in a quiet, grinding, destructive depression, but Glimmer was expressive. They all relied upon her emotion to carry them and to bring about catharsis.

"What do you mean?" She-Ra asked. A small denial, a tiny hope.

"She's gone," Mermista spoke up, sniffling and wiping her eyes with an inner mental _"Dammit, Glimmer."_

Perfuma looked down and away.

"Well, then we have to go back for her."

"No, she's really gone," Bow insisted.

She-Ra slumped to her knees on the floor of the skiff, the warrior-magic dissipating and returning her to the form of Adora, and Adora was a portrait of defeat.

She took a moment before catching her breath, the news running through her, chilling her veins. "We need to go back for her," she said slowly. "I know it's dangerous but… her people…Dryl… they'll want to bury her."

"There's nothing left!" Mermista shouted, balling up her fists and pounding one of them on the side of the skiff. Adora was shocked to attention.

"What do you mean? What happened?"

Bow spoke up. "As we were exiting the last chamber, that robot she reprogrammed got its cord stuck. Entrapta went back to free it and got…trapped in the chamber."

Suddenly, Mermista laughed. The rest of the group stared in shock. "I don't know if I should just hate her for it or appreciate the irony."

"Shut up." Perfuma snapped.

"I mean, it's weird, you know?" Mermista continued, "Little Miss Technology killed by technology… our trap-smith killed by a trap!"

"Enough!" Perfuma huffed, standing up to full height, balancing herself carefully against the subtle movement of the skiff. "We just watched OUR FRIEND GET BURNED ALIVE - TO ASHES! You should be ashamed of yourself! She's probably watching over us! What would she think?"

"Ah, relax; knowing her, she's probably laughing with me. You know her – the idiot."

"She was a genius!"

"A genius-idiot! I mean… going back for a robot that probably would have been fine? That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen anybody do! Dumber than you setting your ships on fire, Sea Hawk! For someone so smart, she was remarkably stupid."

"You take that back!"

"Enough, ladies, enough!" Sea Hawk interjected. "We do no service to Entrapta's noble memory by tearing each other apart!"

"Deep breaths, deep breaths," Perfuma told herself, sitting back down and trying to regain her center of calm.

Glimmer was sobbing in Bow's arms. He rubbed her back. "Easy, easy there." He said nothing more. He didn't try to tell her that everything was going to be alright because he knew that it wasn't and wouldn't be. As far as he knew, not even She-Ra had the power to replace a lost life.

Adora, for her part, was shivering and clasping her arms. She clenched her teeth and tried not to show weakness. "Ashes," she said to herself in a whisper.

"What was that?" Bow asked.

"Nothing."

Now that she was aware of what had transpired, Adora was no longer going to insist upon any attempts to recover remains, either now or in the future.

A memory of her younger days slammed her with full-force.

It had happened three years ago. A trainee from another squadron had gone into one of the ports unauthorized and had gotten caught in a flame-purge. Shadow Weaver had insisted upon taking her squadron for a little "field trip" to the port before what was left of the unlucky young man had been done away with.

Shadow Weaver had called it a "lesson in not being careless."

The purge had not burnt the body to a neat pile of ashes. Instead, what remained was something Adora could only describe (if she was ever called upon to) as a pile of charred skin, red flesh and exposed bone. She would never forget the boy's front teeth staring up at her from that melted face – eye sockets and sinuses exposed, half-cooked meat barely clinging to a skull. She could make out parts of his uniform still clinging to parts of him, the fabric melted into what used to be skin.

The odor was beyond description.

Catra had thrown up all over Adora's boots that day. Shadow Weaver had scolded her for it and ordered a meeting in her chambers after the field trip had ended. Adora never knew what had happened in that meeting, but Catra had cried in her presence after it as soon as the two of them were sure they were alone.

For her part, Adora never told anyone about the nightmares she had after that day, not even Catra. She did not want to show vulnerability. She also had a growing awareness that whenever she screwed up, it seemed like Catra shared in her punishment and took the brunt of it, for reasons unknown to her. It was not justice, but that was just life in the Fright Zone.

She was supremely cautious around the ports.

She hugged herself, thinking about that long-dead boy, her mind flashing back between the image of his corpse to the last time she saw Entrapta's smiling face. She winced, trying to stop her imagination.

Charred meat. Bright teeth. Burnt hair.

None of them wanted to see Entrapta in that state.

The ride back to the edges of Rebellion-held territory was quiet, punctuated with a few sobs and sniffles. They shared the occasional memory of something or other Entrapta had done. None of them had known her very long, but they each had some small, warm thing to share. Bow knew the most, through fandom. He spoke about inventions of hers he'd seen before he'd met her and of a project for the Rebellion that they'd been working on together – a device for launching a large amount of explosive arrows at once.

Sea Hawk talked about how she'd made him a small boat out of a metal framework and a waterproof, fabric-bonded super-adhesive tape, just to see if it was seaworthy – and it was.

Perfuma handed Bow a small object. "She dropped this when we were sneaking around the Fright Zone. I think it was her favorite screwdriver. I was going to give it back to her, but we were on the run and…and…"

"Yeah," Bow said dully, turning the tool around in his hands.

The little group made it to the Whispering Woods. It was there, after a short argument, that they decided to break up. At the very least, Mermista insisted upon going home. Perfuma wanted to go back to Plumeria to try to regain a sense of peace. Glimmer could no longer teleport and was suffering from the dark magic that Shadow Weaver had used on her, but insisted upon stalling any homecoming to Bright Moon because she did not want to face her mother until she could figure things out and pull herself together.

Sea Hawk agreed to continue piloting. He'd take the skiff to each of the Alliance Kingdoms and drop everybody off before going back to his own port and keeping the liberated skiff for his boat-collection.

Each was a slow and sad disembarking. Through it all, Adora said not a word. So, this was the end of everything she'd worked for since she'd joined the Rebellion. It all fell apart over one life. It all fell apart because of her failure. She kept running different strategies over and over again in her mind, trying to pick apart something she could have done differently.

The final destination before Bright Moon was Dryl.

Adora wished she could enjoy the sight of the cityscape as she, Bow, Glimmer and Sea Hawk flew over it. Normally, she would have gawked at the shining buildings and various forms of transport going to and fro in the most technology-focused non-Horde held part of Etheria, but she didn't feel like doing much of anything but thinking. They would not stop there, in the city. Their destination was the outskirts, the mining-district, Castle Dryl.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, perhaps, they found just who they were looking for outside the castle doors. Adora spared a small smile for Entrapta's kitchen staff. They were serving a large group of people gathered outside the castle gates as they welded and wired, working from blueprints upon various weapons and communication items that had been ordered by Queen Angella as per Rebellion-contracting. Some of the more advanced and humanoid-shaped robots worked, as well, but unlike the human workers, they did not need to eat.

A plump woman whose name Adora never caught ran up to the skiff as Bow disembarked.

"How did the mission go?" she asked. "Where is Princess Entrapta?"

The shorter woman and the thin young man with the pointed ears – also names that Adora did not get - to her regret – came up behind the large matron.

"Butter biscuits!" she complained. "She didn't go off on some wild goose chase again, did she? Nothing that's not mechanical or ancient can keep that girl's attention!"

"Well," Bow began slowly, "The rescue was a success. I am here and so is Princess Glimmer."

Glimmer let out a sob and Adora hugged her.

The elder woman's smile fell and nervousness laced her features.

"I have…some bad news," Bow said. He held out the tiny screwdriver in the palm of his right hand. "Entrapta, she… we lost her. And… I don't mean that we lost-lost her, I mean…What I'm trying to say is…"

"Es'tra?" The woman mouthed. "Our Es'tra is dead?"

Bow nodded.

"No… oh, no, no…" the woman hugged the man next to her. The other staffer just looked up at Bow with pleading eyes.

"Es'tra?" Adora asked.

"Entrapta's real name," Bow explained. "Es'tra Vesselak. Entrapta is just a nickname. People started calling her that because, well… we've all been inside Castle Dryl."

"She preferred it," the large woman sniffled.

"We're sorry, we're really, really sorry," Bow said.

The large baker gently took the screwdriver from Bow's hand and looked at it quizzically.

"It's all that's left," he sighed. "We were unable to recover her."

Adora shivered. Glimmer figured she was hiding something, but did not want to ask about it.

The baker placed the screwdriver back into his hand. "You should have it," she said. "She was excited to work with you."

Bow closed his fingers over it. He closed his eyes. "Thank you," he responded. He tried not to notice how everyone in the area had paused and was looking at him and his companions. "We cannot stay," he explained after a few minutes.

Glimmer moaned from the skiff, trying not to phase out.

"We've been…hurt," Adora said at long last, holding Glimmer steady. "We need to get back to Bright Moon as soon as possible."

The Drylians looked on as Bow boarded the skiff and the remnants of a broken alliance departed toward the darkening sky.


	2. A Study in Survival

**Trapped**

 **Chapter 2: A Study in Survival**

Survival instinct – it was a fascinating thing. How it could turn on in various parts of a given subject's body subconsciously at just the right moment to save the subject from injury was just the type of trigger that Entrapta had long wished to incorporate into an advanced artificial intelligence. Observances of biological subjects' responses to unexpected danger-stimuli had provided her with mixed results, to the point that she had eventually relented in putting the few human members of her castle-staff who hadn't quit and left her service through the place's labyrinth because it soon became apparent that running the gauntlet wasn't as entertaining for them as it was for her. At least it was a top-notch security system for keeping her research safe.

Every once in a while, she'd forget where she'd laid a trap and got a chance to observe her own reflexes. Those were fun days.

Today was not as fun. Her hair sometimes had "a mind of its own" (a quick trigger-response) and, in hindsight, she was glad of it.

She yanked on Emily's key-drive, trying to free it from the port as she heard the blast-doors sliding up and the hiss of gas-jets preparing to light. She looked back at her friends' shocked faces as the gates sealed, locking her in.

Well, this was going to hurt.

It was that nanosecond of realization when one of her hair-tails blocked her view and slammed her mask down over her face. It wended parts of itself under it as well as over the thing, securing itself over her eyes and mouth. She panicked, unable to breathe. The rest of her hair whipped around her in an absolute mess, binding her limbs and wrapping over itself, centering it's bulk around her upper body. A second or two later came the roar and the heat from the ports' security system.

Pained beeps and warped sounds from Emily. Heat. Choking. Panic. Sweat. Noise. The stench of burning keratin. A dragging feeling centered in parts of her scalp. Restraint. Weakness. Darkness. 

* * *

Darkness. That's what she noticed first from a horizontal position on a cold metal floor. There was no sense of time. The young woman groped around for the sheets and blankets in her bed and finding those absent, She slowly opened her eyes and flipped up her welding-mask once she realized she had it on and that she wasn't in bed. She looked for the glow of the consoles in her familiar castle-laboratory, but did not find those either. All Entrapta found as she rolled on her side was her own hair - notably charred and frizzed in places, and the ties had come undone. She caught a glimpse of her timepiece with glowing numbers reading several hours from the last she remembered being awake and gradually realized that she wasn't home – that she'd been on a mission.

She saw Emily beside her. From the light of the electrical sparks arching off a damaged component of the robot, she could see a few tendrils of her hair wrapped around the machine's spider-legs – the two that were unbroken.

"Emily!" she yelped, bringing herself to a sitting position. She immediately regretted it. Acute pain shot through her left leg. It felt fevered, more so than the rest of her body, and like it was too big to fit in its footwear. Carefully, Entrapta pulled herself to sit upright and gingerly rolled back the leg-sleeve of her coveralls to find part of the fabric burned. The sight that greeted her was a rather nasty glob of reddened skin and blisters.

Her head swam. She felt rather hot and shivery at the same time. Emily limped, dragging Entrapta with her.

"Huh, what? Stop! Ow!"

The spherical robot made its way to a large ventilation-shaft and tapped on it with one of its good legs, leaning down and almost tipping over on its damaged one. Slick with sweat and feeling sick, Entrapta found a grate in the dark. She sucked in wind through her teeth as she moved her bum-leg and reached into one of her back pockets.

Where was her favorite screwdriver?

She found a backup and unscrewed the vent. Entrapta may have been impressed by tall people and big people every once in a while, but she was never truly envious of them. Her small frame made crawling through small spaces to hide from threats easy. She didn't hear anybody coming, but knew intuitively that Emily was looking out for her safety. The vent would provide a good place to rest until the dizziness waned. She fished around in her pockets with her partially-singed hair. Her last sodapop-bottle was nearly empty and the cola was warm. She downed what she could. She had some party snacks leftover from Frosta's ball and some food she had taken from Castle Bright Moon's kitchens. She munched a petit four.

She listened carefully for footsteps and noises and only heard Emily's concerned beeps and damage-crackles.

She patted herself down. Ah, there was her recorder. She decided to make a short log. It was likely she was going to pass out again and wanted something on record in case her current state compromised her memory.

"Fright Zone Log, Day…1? Maybe 2. The hours seem to have gotten away from me. I believe I have been unconscious for at least five hours. I am trapped behind enemy lines. Reviewing the key elements of survival…Water…yeah, water, I need to find water. I don't suppose the Fright Zone has anything fizzy. Shelter – I have that, um, sort-of. Food. I have a few provisions on my person to ration. Second-degree burn on left leg, extending from the top of the ankle over the calf to the bottom of the knee. It needs medical attention that could be covered by first aid if I can find some supplies. It's super-painful. I believe I handed my burn-cream to Sea Hawk to take care of a small laser-burn… I can't believe I forgot to ask for it back… It's been a vital part of my arsenal ever since that incident with my eyebrows."

"Hmmmm…" she continued. "In possession of a roll of duct tape, but lacking my favorite screwdriver. I must have dropped it. Have the backup, but poor Phillip. I'm going to miss him."

She lay down, recorder to her lips. "The Princesses and Bow and Sea Hawk will come back for me. Perfuma asked me to stay in one place, so if I stay in the immediate area, I'll be easy to find. I hope…they come soon."

She sighed. "I'm gonna go night-night now."

Entrapta let her thumb slip off the recorder as she passed out again. 

* * *

First things were first when she awakened again. Emily had taken a substantial amount of damage and needed to be repaired if she was going to keep up. The weld needed on her broken leg was easy. Entrapta asked forgiveness as she had to cut Emily's power for a few minutes to take care of the damaged electronics. The technician was over the moon when she found a new partial-casing in a cargo cart that was destined for the scrap yard. She also found a few crystal lenses, some spare copper and an etherium crystal that was only slightly cracked. She concluded that the Horde was wasteful – this was all great stuff to find in the trash!

Most of Emily's work would have to wait. Entrapta was thirsty, her leg hurt and her hair was untidy. The snack and the rest she'd had was enough to restore some of her energy, but she had some immediate needs to take care of.

She clambered back into the vent and crawled about. She hoisted herself up into a ceiling-duct and caught a slight whiff of fowl air combined with a perfumed scent. She sniffed, recognizing the odor that told her that a restroom was near. As she crawled closer, it was unmistakable – the biological odor created by humanoid bodies covered over with the biological odor of flowers. It wasn't bad – it had a faded quality which told her that the area had been used recently, but was probably not currently in use. She could hear the subtle sounds of plumbing in the walls.

After she was sure that she didn't hear any footsteps or scuffling, she peered out of a vent opening to find her gaze met with a toilet in a stall below. Well, she didn't need that right now. She unlatched the vent-gate and clambered down on her hair. She perched on the toilet in the closed stall, still assessing whether or not she was alone. Her senses screamed at her. She wasn't about to drink toilet-water, but she hoped the Horde cared enough about sanitation to provide their soldiers hand-washing sinks.

Entrapta leaped the stall on her hair and found just what she was looking for. She turned the sink on and shoved her face in it, lapping the water on her tongue at the faucet. This was a combination of desperation to slake her thirst and the fact that the water coming out in force made it not exactly soda, but sort of simulated the fizz. In any case, it was more comfortable to her than cupping her hands and drinking it plain. She filled her soda-bottle, shook it up and drank.

After that she splashed her face and ran her wet fingers through her hair. She found extra hair-ties in one of her pockets and cleaned up her locks, binding them into familiar tails. Entrapta discovered a pair of mini-snips on her person and, with clenched teeth, began the process of trimming off the burnt parts. Hair-trimming did not physically hurt her like some might have guessed given its liveliness, but losing any of it made the princess emotional. She tried not to cry as she looked at herself in the mirror hung above the sink. She clipped only that which was necessary and washed the neat little trimmings down the sink.

Looking about the room, she found another thing she was looking for. There was a metal first-aid box on the wall. She opened it to find salve and bandages. Some blisters popped as she treated the burn on her leg. A tendril of her hair acted with the same survival-instinct she'd observed earlier. It slammed itself into her mouth in order to keep her quiet, cutting off her scream before it exited her throat.

Entrapta hauled herself back up into the vents and went back to the room where she'd left Emily and her scavenged junk. She took to happily repairing and upgrading the bot. Having something to do with her hands kept her mind off pain.

She didn't keep track of how much time she'd worked. Her leg bothered her too much for her to keep the hourly logs she tended to do with intense work. Before she knew it, she'd improved Emily's laser-weapon, had rounded out every dent and had given her newly-whole casing a spiffy polish.

In her view, Emily deserved it all.

Entrapta took a rest. "Fright Zone Log," she recorded, "Day 1? Yeah, Day 1 still. 21 Hours. Emily repaired and fully-functional, with some exciting improvements! I deduce that my hair cocooned me in the flame-purge chamber. Found signs of a strengthened weave when I was styling out the burns. I also deduce that Emily shielded me from the torches and dragged me out of danger once the chamber was clear. Such a good bot."

Emily beeped.

"Yep, I love you, too," Entrapta told it, petting the casing.

She continued the log. "My friends still haven't arrived. Maybe they're having trouble finding me? Perhaps I should explore other areas of the Fright Zone and search for any sign of them. I could leave the Zone, but they wouldn't know where to find me."

A thought occurred to her too obvious for even her flighty attention to overlook.

"Is it possible that my friends incorrectly presume my demise?"

Entrapta mulled it over in her mind. She had narrowly survived the port. Her hair and the self-sacrifice of her new robot-daughter had saved her life. If she was a normal person and lacking in a robot companion, well…normally she'd be dead by now. They had to have known she would have gotten out, right? She'd gotten out of every other trap she'd been in. Then again most other traps she'd been in were of her own design and getting caught was a matter of purpose to test their workings.

"Even if that is true, they should come back to confirm my death and to retrieve my remains. The usual mourning rituals among sapient species center upon the body or the ashes of the deceased."

Entrapta remembered how robots in her castle would gather around any one of their number that had ceased functioning before she could shoo them away to repair a "fallen brother."

"Well, if they think I have ceased my life-functions, I can't wait to surprise them!" she concluded.

Everyone was searching for her, she was sure of it. All she had to do was to listen to what Perfuma had told her and stay put.

Entrapta decided that she would do some spying and scavenging around the Fright Zone while she waited, coming back to her safe-spot not too far away from the ports periodically.

Her friends would come. All she had to do was give them a little time.


	3. The Island of Misfit Toys

**Trapped**

 **Chapter 3: The Island of Misfit Toys**

Entrapta never paid much attention to the war beyond her borders. Sure, she'd had concerns about Horde operations close to the edges, but she had ways of keeping Dryl's secrets safe. She'd had spy-bots take a look at some of the Horde tanks and flyers. She analyzed the information they relayed to her systems and took notes.

The young scientist was discovering many interesting machines as she was hiding around in the Fright Zone. Once in a while, she would exit the vents to chase down some little scavenger droid or to examine the structure of the wings of a grounded flyer on one of the airstrips before ducking away into the shadows to avoid being discovered.

The encryption programs on their computer systems were _awesome_. Unlike anything else she'd seen outside the borders of her kingdom, they were an actual _challenge_ to hack, although she did wish that one of the passwords she'd found on one of them _wasn't_ "HordakRules69."

Emily seemed to think that one was amusing, too.

It was only a matter of hours before Entrapta essentially had the full-run of the Fright Zone. She broke into the sealed kitchens to snatch food. None of it was particularly tiny and cute, so she had to improvise in dividing it up into such. She wasn't entirely sure what protein-sources they were using, and much of what she was eating was too bland for her to tell by taste alone whether it was animal-derived or plant-based. She would have analyzed it in a room that she found that struck her as some kind of weird combination of a biologics laboratory and a sorcerer's room, but crept back behind the walls when she saw the sorceress that apparently owned it entering.

Entrapta shivered. She could feel the shadows coming off that person. She watched in fascination from a ventilation shaft at the tendrils of smoke that curled up from the witch's feet. The hair on her arms stood on end, and not because she was willing it to. Her instincts told her to leave well enough alone and to get out of the area before she was sensed.

She'd found a sparse infirmary and managed to give her wounded leg better treatment. Later, she found herself observing a conversation in a darkened throne room. So that was Hordak. He was an imposing specimen.

Entrapta continued scuttling about the hidden areas of the Fright Zone like an oversized spider, covering her tracks. As interested as she was in everything, she knew that the first law of survival behind enemy lines was to not get caught. At least that's what Adora had told her. She'd read that… yeah, she'd definitely read about that at some point, some war-tactics book in her parents' old library. Adora was better at that stuff than she was. Entrapta was known to all as a clever girl – and as such, she was smart enough to know that she wasn't an expert in everything. Engineering, robotics and studies on the First Ones were her majors and main passions, biology and sociology and lots of other little bits in any given science-field were her minors and she basically left the advanced strategy and battle-tactics to Adora. The blonde had been raised since early childhood to be a soldier. It made the most logical sense.

They had worked well together. Adora had trusted her to handle the hacking while she and the other princesses had trusted Adora to tell them where to go. Despite all of their differences – and, perhaps because of them, they'd all worked well together – like the parts of a fine-tuned machine. Perfuma handled the horticulture, Mermista the hydraulics, Bow the weaponry and Sea Hawk the transport.

What was this feeling she was experiencing? Entrapta did not bother to keep a log of it as it was a sensation that she had felt seldom. Emily alleviated it a bit, but after endless time dodging in the dark, she was beginning to feel lonely.

Entrapta was almost never lonely, even though she was almost always alone. It was just the way she was – introverted by nature, always focused upon work and study. She considered the First Ones her "friends" of a sort, with how their artifacts spoke across time to her. Her robots took care of her needs, even the occasional need for conversation. Her "Mumsy" and "Daddums" units had voice-recordings taken from her long-gone biological parents. Whenever she'd missed having a family, she'd order them into whatever room she was in and let them dote on her or tell her to clean up her room or whatever.

Time alone gave her peace, a chance to sort out all of the thoughts colliding in her brain all at once. Inspiration never shut up and she rarely met anyone who could keep up with the speed of her connections. Occasionally, someone in the Etherian Maker's Community could talk shop on a high-level with her when she bothered to go to guild-meetings. She'd been compared, every once in a while, to a reclusive author. It was clear that some of her traits were shared quite commonly among creative-types of all fields. However, as comfortable as she was to be left alone with her history, technology, tools, code, languages and anything else she had an interest at any given time, nights could get dark in Dryl and the upper rooms of the high tower felt cold.

It was on these nights that she'd navigate the labyrinth to find one or more members of the staff to talk to. They seemed to be friendly and willing to humor her – particularly discussions of the chemistry of cooking – when they were at work making her snacks, making their own meals or cleaning up. They weren't so happy when she'd drop down from the ceiling panels of their bedrooms when she wanted to hang out and they wanted to sleep.

She'd had quite a few staff-members quit her service over that… not as many who quit because they felt they were in mortal danger whenever she got the whim to add something fun to Castle Dryl or to make changes. She simply built more robots that could handle simple tasks to replace lost crew and didn't think much about it, with the final members left being the cook-staff because she hadn't yet figured out how to perfect a taste-sensory system. She had a soda-taster that was pretty close, but not quite up to her satisfaction.

In the end, everyone left her, she always ended up alone, one way or another, and so, she trusted better and related better to metal, code and glass.

She sat in a corner, curled up safe in a crawlspace. "Day 2, early morning…I think. Difficult to tell. Fright Zone Log: Gathered much intelligence on the Horde's operations. It seems my friends are still looking for me. I'm really looking forward to showing Bow the upgrades on Emily. He'll be so impressed!"

Being in the Princess Alliance had felt…new. Entrapta had joined mainly out of curiosity and as thanks for Adora, Glimmer and Bow saving her life and the lives of her cook-crew - and given the way her robots were acting all screwy and how the major grids of Dryl had gone down for a while – quite possibly the entire kingdom, so it was the least she could do. It was mainly professional. Still there was something special in the experience of being a part of a team. The fact that people started referring to her as a friend was a strange, new thing, something to probe and to explore.

Human contact – the final frontier?

In her short time interacting with each of them, she'd learned that they all had something fascinating to talk about. Entrapta had asked Adora multiple questions regarding her life training and conditioning as a soldier and for her part, Adora had agreed to some measurements of her strength both as herself and in the form of She-Ra. She never let Entrapta touch her sword, which the scientist and found disappointing, but she had been able to observe it in action, as Adora was compliant in demonstrating it's offensive capabilities on training dummies for her.

Entrapta remembered just about bursting at the seams in excitement when the girl had asked her to make her an obstacle course to train in. She got to equip it with some of her best traps.

Glimmer… well, Entrapta didn't really talk with her much. Most of the time, she just complained about problems in her home-life and Entrapta silently listened. The mother-daughter-relationship between living specimens was a most interesting area of study. Glimmer would show off her teleportation abilities to her. Entrapta openly wondered how she could keep her component particles stable. The princess of Bright Moon became most disturbed one day when Entrapta suggested that each time she teleported that she might, in fact, be destroying herself and creating merely a copy, essentially "dying" every time she preformed the act. Glimmer angrily assured her that it did not work that way. This warranted further study.

Sea Hawk and Mermista – her interaction with them consisted mainly of discussions of the properties of water and the engineering of ships. This resulted in Entrapta promoting the emergency reparative properties of duct tape, for which Sea Hawk was grateful. Mermista had just rolled her eyes.

Bow she'd been bonding with rather well. Entrapta was impressed by his custom arrow-designs. She'd found them clever and conveying this information had sent him into waves of excitement. The young man had a surprisingly good grasp of technical know-how for someone who'd grown up in the Whispering Woods. Entrapta, for her part, plumed him for anything he could tell her about the nature of its shifting landscape. She wanted to do an extensive study on the area. She had a theory that, collectively, the trees were connected by their roots and had networked themselves into not only a super-organism, but into a rudimentary consciousness. She actively wondered how this quirk of evolution – if indeed true – compared to artificial intelligence.

Perfuma, well… Entrapta had some problems getting along with Perfuma. She did not dislike the Princess in Plumeria in the least, but got the feeling that she disliked her. The flower-bedecked blonde expressed frustration with her many times, particularly when she'd wanted to dissect some samples from some of Plumeria's more sacred gardens, and of course when she started darting off her own way on the Fright Zone mission. Perfuma didn't seem to appreciate non-organic life as much as Entrapta did. So, Entrapta found herself bound in vines and dragged along, missing a golden opportunity. She might not be able to study the behavior of that little scavenger-robot ever again! Why did Perfuma pull her away? Right – the mission. Still, couldn't she see the opportunity to study a possibly-emergent rudimentary consciousness in an artificial construct?

Perfuma had never understood her when she'd used terminology like that, either, although Entrapta recalled that the fellow Princess once told her something deep when they'd had a stray chance to ruminate on the mysteries of existence. Perfuma had been talking about her views on the Universe, which she seemed to see as sentient and possessed of a morality-construct based on reward and punishment regarding certain acts on the parts of individuals. She'd been certain that the "arc would bend toward justice" and seemed to find a certain peace in thinking things would all work out in their favor. Entrapta had replied that she wasn't sure about that, as she was not entirely sure what Perfuma meant by "justice," since she had encountered many differing concepts of it in history books and in her observations of the behavior of sapient beings. Perfuma had then tapped her on the nose and told her that she was a piece of the Universe that was smart enough to contemplate itself, and not to waste that status.

Entrapta had taken to that thought. She liked it. It was an interesting idea…that they were all parts of a whole in some kind of grand design even if she did not yet know the function of their particular collective machine.

She was still a bit misunderstood by the rest of their little group, to varying degrees, but she felt a part of something bigger. The Alliance provided her many opportunities for various studies, possible access to more First Ones tech (via Queen Angella's knowledge and She-Ra's connections) and… it seemed, a fresh purpose.

With them, Entrapta wasn't just surviving and inventing things on a whim, she was going to be helping people, people who had invited her into their circle, and she was going to gather as much data on this "having friends" experience as she could.

The walls of the Fright Zone were lonely without them around.

She stiffened as she heard noises outside the vent she was occupying. Footsteps, one set light, one set heavy. Entrapta deduced that it was the scorpion-oid and the person with feline features she'd spied on earlier. She'd met them briefly at the Princess Prom. The cat-girl had, in fact, been rather nice to her there, and helpful. According to Adora, they were Force Captains and to be avoided. Emily was following them, gathering data. She didn't think they'd pay her any mind since she was a Horde-sentry.

Entrapta, for her part, tried to stay still, watching them from the vent-slats.

The cat smoothly pawed open the vent and Entrapta tumbled out.

"Uh…Hiiii," was all she thought to say. A nervous smile, a wave.

Maybe they wouldn't kill her. She sure hoped that this wasn't the end. Life, up until now, had been too much fun.

The two of them loomed over her.

"One of the _Princesses_ ," the cat-woman said, venom on her tongue.

"In the name of the Horde, you are under arrest!" the woman with the scorpion tail said with a touch too much enthusiasm and not as much aggression as expected.

"Don't resist," the cat ordered, "or _do_ …my claws are just itching to tear something apart."

"Ladies! Ladies!" Entrapta said from her sitting position, holding up her hands and her ponytails in the shape of hands "No need to get rough. I'll come quietly."

"Scorpia, bind her."

"Will do, Catra," the arachnid-woman responded. She was surprisingly deft with ties, given her enormous, cumbersome-looking claws. Entrapta had many questions, but she would ask them later.

Entrapta walked along in silence, following the orders of her captors. She was, strangely enough, not afraid. She'd always been curious as to what a Horde prison cell was like.

"Hmmm… I think we might need Octavia's cuffs for this one," the cat-person, Catra, mused. Keep a hold on that hair.

Scorpia leaned down over Entrapta. "I'm not pulling too hard, am I?" she asked apologetically.

"No, I'm fine." Entrapta answered.

They wended down into one of the prison wings. She'd been caught, but it wasn't a crisis, it was an opportunity. The Princesses _would_ probably look for her in the dungeons if they thought she'd been captured. It was logical. Before she knew what was happening, they'd entered a sparse room and Scorpia lifted her up. Wall-cuffs slammed, locking her limbs into four-points and her hair was pulled up into an additional two. After that, the cat and the scorpion left. Entrapta had no idea how long they'd planned to keep her trussed up like this. She was just well-supported enough for the restraints not to act like a crucifixion – she could breathe just fine. The stray thought struck her that she was glad that she had made use of one of the latrine-areas just before she'd been caught.

She hung for at least fifteen minutes, maybe closer to twenty.

If they'd planned to leave her for a while, she might as well get comfortable, which meant getting out of the restraints. She couldn't decide whether it was better to go back to her work in the walls or just to wait in the cell in case her friends came by to check them. Either way, the locks were tempting her to pick them, just to see what manner of locks they were. She probed within her own hair with her hair and found one of the multitools she was storing within one of the tails. Her hair had always been stronger than average and she'd frequently used her ponytails as extra pockets. She had ways of keeping her screwdrivers and soldering irons from tangling up her hair. The strands always slid off smoothly.

One shackle loose. That was easy.

She immediately shoved her hair back into the lock, hid her tool and resumed position when the door at the other end of the room slid open.

Catra strode forward, announcing that "Lord Hordak" had tasked her with the interrogation. Scorpia reminded Catra of her name.

She played with the right hair-lock again. Catra shot a warning beam at her from a handheld device.

 _Ah, well,_ Entrapta thought: _It's not like I haven't been electrocuted before…many times, actually._

Catra slid the thing up her neck and held her chin with it. "I don't care what it takes, I am going to drag the Rebellion's plans out of you," she threatened. For her part, Entrapta quickly grabbed the handheld beam-taser out of Catra's hands with a lock of freed hair, enraptured by it.

What a neat little weapon! She fiddled with the buttons and blasted a hole in the ceiling. The scorpion had some quick reflexes – she'd managed to catch the rubble and protect her partner.

Entrapta, of course, asked if she could have the device. It was too interesting. She didn't care about her present circumstances; she had to make it hers. Disappointingly, Catra grabbed it right back.

"And stop! I'm interrogating you!"

Without even thinking about it (right now she was only thinking about the pretty-shiny-boomy-toy that she wanted back), she offered "Well, okay then, what do you want to know?"

Maybe if she'd told them something – either a small nugget of truth or a few white lies, they'd let her play with the boomy… It was worth a shot. It wasn't like she wanted to hurt them with it; she just wanted to see how it worked!

"Why were you hiding out in the Fright Zone?"

Hair fully freed and expressive now, Entrapta casually explained her situation. "I was just waiting for my friends to get back. They had trouble finding me before, so I figured I'd make it easier for them if I just stay put right here."

Catra's expression softened just slightly. "They left you."

"No, no, they're my friends! They'll be back!" Her attention immediately turned to the one called "Scorpia." Pulling herself out of the restraints and putting her mask down, she approached her. "Say, your tail secretes some kind of paralyzing agent, right? Do you think I could have a sample to study?" She grabbed the tail with her hair.

Scorpia seemed most upset about this. "You can't just grab another woman's tail without asking!"

Catra started combing one of her hair-tails with her claws, stroking it gently… almost as if Entrapta's hair was… well, a cat, or some other small, furry animal. She spoke gently, wearing that same soft, sad expression that she first showed when Entrapta had told her that she had gotten lost.

"Some friends. They left you and they aren't coming back." She spoke of an apparent abandonment by Adora. She seemed to be offering, if just for a moment, something in common.

She twirled her finger around in a tendril of hair now, still speaking softly, with an ache in her voice.

"She got her precious Bow and Glimmer back. All these Princesses care about are people just like them, but you aren't like them, are you?"

Catra, for her part, did not know the circumstances for how Entrapta had gotten lost. She didn't know about what happened in the flame-port, but assumptions could be deduced. Again, Entrapta mulled it over, whether they thought her dead or alive, she had been certain that they'd return to search for her – to make sure that she was not in need of rescue and to rescue her if she was.

They had to be on their way… held up, perhaps. Maybe Bow and Glimmer had required medical attention. She-Ra would come, at least.

This forced Entrapta to contemplate the situation. They were her friends, right? They'd been working together. Then again, the rescue of Bow and Glimmer had been the mission. None of the others seemed to care about the side-quest opportunities that she was taking to gain more knowledge of Horde technology and operations. Even as she'd had people she was calling friends, she'd kept to the outside of most of the social interactions, studying them, waiting to feel welcomed. How many times had she been regarded with weird looks, or even outright fear? She remembered Glimmer's appalled reaction when she'd talked about theories of particle-principle in regards to teleportation. Her actions had disturbed Perfuma's calm many times. Even Bow and she had a few minor arguments debating practicality versus pure science. Mermista didn't seem to really like anybody. Adora, well… she didn't seem to make a secret that she thought of Entrapta as useful…

… Was she _merely_ thought of as "just useful?"

Entrapta glanced at her timepiece. Was that right? She took out her recorder and made a log.

"Fright Zone Log, Hour 45. Is that right? I don't know if that's right. It was hard to tell in the walls. Hour 45, that's… that's too many hours…This angry feline-person seems to be correct. They're not coming back for me…"

The realization caused a twisting sensation in her gut. She lost composure and could not stop herself from tearing up. Maybe she was still here because they didn't care. They'd used her in the escape, but maybe they didn't want her anymore after that. Perhaps they thought she was dead and were _glad of it_ – no more fear of her experiments gone array. It could be that they assumed her captured, and likewise _did not care_ – because they'd had their contracts with Dryl and weapons in the working. It looked like she'd reached her annoyance-threshold with them as she had with most other flesh and blood people she'd met.

 _Eventually everyone leaves me…  
_  
Catra gently wiped her tears with a brush of her tail.

"You wouldn't have to pretend to be something you're not with the Horde," Catra offered. Think of what you can accomplish here, what we can accomplish… together."

Entrapta paused, letting her thoughts run. She had, indeed, gained more knowledge from fiddling with Horde-technology in the short time that she was here than in her entire life and she said as much.

Maybe these new people were offering her a new chance at the "friendship" experiment, maybe a new purpose. She decided, even if she couldn't trust them entirely, that as long as she was here, that she shouldn't waste the vast scientific opportunities presented before her.

They could give her access to shiny new toys.

At the very least, for the time being, she figured that if she remained compliant, they wouldn't kill her, or torture her… or try to cut her hair. Besides, they seemed most impressed with Emily once they were properly introduced, destroyed wall aside.

Every misfit was useful somewhere.


	4. The Battle of Halfmoon

**Trapped**

 **Chapter 4: The Battle of Halfmoon**

Adora found herself walking through a dense fog, the sound of machinery pounding out a metallic rhythm, turning into so much background noise. Her attention was caught by a sudden, very human sound - a cheerful voice in the dark around her. Its source bounded into her view.

"Hey, Adora!" Entrapta said; her hands on her hips and her hair out behind her. "Did you come by to see my latest invention?"

"Entrapta," Adora found herself saying slowly, "aren't you dead? I thought you'd died."

"Oh, no, silly," the technician replied, waving with her hair. "I'm just a little lost. Maybe if you take my hand, you can lead me out of this fog?"

Adora took her hand only to find, to her utmost horror, that Entrapta's skin peeled off in her grasp, bleeding and burnt. The bones of the hand became visible before taking on a silvery sheen. All that was left was robotic components with flesh hanging off them in rags.

She looked up to see Entrapta's face in a similar condition – deeply burnt flesh crumbling off a metal jaw, red eyes caught somewhere between glass optics and a human gaze. What was still human in her eyes was pleading. Entrapta's hair was half-charred, blood-caked and smoking.

"Why did you leave me, Adora?" she asked.

"I couldn't-!" Adora choked, backing up.

"You left me behind."

"I tried-!"

"You didn't save me. She-Ra didn't save me. You failed…You failed me…"

"I…I…I…"

"Burning hurts, Adora. It hurt – a lot."

She balled up her fists. "I couldn't save you!" she cried. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"

"She-Ra was supposed to save everyone."

"I won't let anyone else get hurt, I swear it! We will all remember you!"

"You left me."

Fire licked around the corrupted, partially-robotic version of Entrapta's feet and she vanished into darkness, the blood-caked skeletal-steel hand slipping away.

* * *

"No!"

Adora woke up with a start, shooting straight to sitting on her bedroll.

"What's wrong?" Bow asked, quick to her side to steady her.

"Adora?" Glimmer asked, "It was just a nightmare. You're here with us. It's okay."

Adora got her bearings. The fabric of a tent was above her, held up by sturdy poles. She was on a bedroll on grassy ground. It was early morning, the gloaming of pre-dawn. Birdsong was loud outside.

Ah, yes, they were in the war-camp on the border of the kingdom of Halfmoon. It was a small country – more like a city-state – that had requested aid from the Rebellion. Adora hadn't seen a single stretch of the actual city, for it was underground and the area above it was protected by magic. The people of Halfmoon were skilled in illusion-spells. That was their main problem: Some sophisticated Horde spy-bots had been probing their cloak-fence and had discovered their general location. The only thing protecting Half-Moon now was a series of force-fields, illusion-fencing and its quagmire of underground entrance and exit-ways.

The people were a peaceful sort and, while they had some warriors among them, they were largely unaccustomed to combat. Most of their tactics lay in illusion and camouflage. The Horde knew where they were now and they expected an assault in the near future. Spies gathering information on Horde troop moments confirmed it and so, a portion of Bright Moon's army was stationed on Halfmoon's border now and Adora had been sent, along with Bow, Glimmer and most of the Princess Alliance. Mermista and Sea Hawk were guarding Sailineas, but Perfuma was with the Halfmoon-group. So were Netossa and Spinnerella. Queen Angella had wanted to deploy Netossa and keep Spinnerella stationed in Bright Moon, but the two were practically joined at the hip – where one went, so did the other.

Angella had wanted Adora to stay in Bright Moon, as well, due to a "possible conflict of interest." She feared that she would find the Halfmoon mission distracting. Adora found out why when the emissary had accidentally stumbled in on them talking. - The people of Halfmoon were cat-folk. Adora desperately asked the poor emissary in babbling, excited sentences that all ran together if they'd known Catra and was given only confusion. Halfmoon had lost some of their number when the Horde had first invaded Etheria and a few had been lost since, but the emissary did not personally know who or what Adora was talking about and could give her no help in uncovering her former friend – now enemy's past. Adora had never seen any cat-folk besides Catra before seeing the pale gray and spotted castle-guest with the soft, rounded ears and fluffy tail. Emissary Yuuki was a different kind of cat-person that Catra was, a "snow leopard type," she was told.

Halfmoon was not entirely a hermit-kingdom. The Magicats, as they called themselves, ran trading caravans that walked all over the world – letting the bravest of their people live as nomads to bring back news and goods. A cat-folk choosing to remain in another kingdom was not unheard of. They were rather cagey about their dealings with outsiders, however, rarely speaking of Halfmoon. Instead, the traveling traders liked to wink and tell curious people that they were merely from "elsewhere."

Now, Adora and her friends were on the borders of this "Else Where" having insisted upon going on the mission. The Magicats had much to offer Bright Moon in trade and knowledge. In fact, the cat-folk knew that the Horde had long been interested in their kingdom for their treasure-trove of lost technology, which fueled their illusions. It was agreed that if the Rebellion was successful in helping Halfmoon repel the Horde and to drive them off the borders long enough for them to set up new cloaks and to shift what they needed to in their underground city to secure it, that some of their best officers and mages could be spared to join the Rebellion's offensive.

Adora's eyes scanned the tent. She was in the Magicat / Rebellion camp, just where she'd been over the last three days. It was dawn, about time to get up, anyway.

"Adora, are you okay?" Glimmer asked in concern.

"You woke us all up," Bow said with a yawn.

"I didn't mean to," Adora apologized. "I'm sorry. It was just a dream. I'll be alright."

"What was it about?" Bow asked, pulling on his boots. "You can tell us. It might make you feel better."

"Was it Shadow Weaver again?" Glimmer asked, "Or Catra clawing you?"

"No," Adora said as she pulled on her outer coat. "I had a dream about Entrapta. I haven't dreamed about her in months."

The last few dreams that had featured her lost friend had been tame. She'd just been in the background, or she'd been with all of Adora's friends as something silly was going on, as dreams were wont to not make much sense, even when one dreamed of mundane things. The last dream Adora remembered which featured the purple-haired Princess involved her begging Entrapta to let her copy a few answers off a pop-quiz that Queen Angella had been giving them all in a classroom-setting for some reason. She was always sad when she awoke from these dreams to realize that Entrapta wasn't around anymore in reality.

She'd had several nightmares about fire and burnt corpses for the first few weeks after the ill-fated mission and after the Battle of Bright Moon was done, but they had mercifully gone away. She had laid a letter in which she'd written out apologies and honors at the memorial-topiary in Plumeria and that had eased her mind enough for those dreams to stop plaguing her. Adora had had a couple of more bizarre nightmares since then, such as the one where Entrapta had taken Swift Wind's brain out of his head and had put it in a glass dome mounted to a body of a robot-unicorn, and the one where she'd successfully removed her own brain and put it back, forcing Adora to watch the entire time, but those dreams were easy enough to shake off.

"Were you being chased by homicidal robots again?" Bow asked.

"No, no," Adora said, shaking her head gently. She shivered lightly. "It was… much worse." She didn't know how much of it she should tell, so she stuck to the basics. "She reached out for me and I grabbed her hand… but she slipped away… into the void."

Glimmer and Bow both looked down. "Oh," they said as one.

"I think my mind might just be playing tricks on me," Adora sighed. "The coming fight here has the potential to be big. Perhaps…I'm just afraid of losing someone again. We're in a war, it happens, but it doesn't mean that I really have to accept it."

"We'll beat the Horde, together!" Glimmer chimed in with a fist-pump. "Just you watch! We'll make them turn tail and run without a single casualty - human, faun, Minotaur or cat! You're totally strong as She-Ra now, stronger than you've ever been!"

"It's my brain messing with me. I need to be stronger than it."

Bow tapped her in the head. "Listen, Adora's Brain, leave her alone! Stop being mean!"

Adora and Glimmer laughed.

"What?" Bow asked.

That was the moment the ground shook as they all heard the explosion of a laser-cannon.

"To arms!" called the Magicat general, Sir Tao.

In the distance, a honeycomb-grid flickered in blue, dissipating into the empty air. It flickered again with another volley of laser-fire from the other side. Soldiers scrambled out of bed and jumped up from the cook-pots they were tending. Everyone was quick to dress and armor-up if they weren't armored already and everyone who had already been awake scrambled to grab their weapons and get into their positions.

"Oh, wow, what a way to wake up!" Perfuma complained as she ran up beside Adora and Bow.

"They're coming in from the north, through the valley - as predicted," Adora said. "You remember what you're supposed to do, right?"

"Uh-huh. Front lines, instant thorn-forest to meet the first tanks," Perfuma said cheerfully.

"Glimmer and I are taking Swift Wind for air-support. Netossa and Spinnerella are stationed to counter any tanks that get past Perfuma… Bow, get to the tree-hides with the other archers."

"Will do!" Bow said with a nod before darting off. 

* * *

"Technician Vesselak!" the wrist-bound computer on Entrapta's left wrist squawked. "We are finished laying the stunner-mines!"

"Oh, how are those hot little potatoes?" Entrapta asked. "I say potatoes…because they're in the ground – and…hot – because they explode!"

"Are you moving ahead?"

"Yeah! Emily and I are at the front with all of her little friends! Just guard the east and west of the valley and I should be able to zip in there and implant the disruptor virus into their shields!"

"This had better work, Vesselak!"

"Hey, if it doesn't, we'll still have gathered data! Relax!

"I don't think anyone can relax when we're running on one of your hare-brained schemes! Hordak will have my hide if we can't secure a victory!"

"Listen, Grizzlor, I'm sorry that my haircare robot put your mane up in pink ribbons, but you've gotta admit –it was super-cute. Trust me…this is gonna do something BIG! Entrapta – out!"

Entrapta scuttled forward on her mount. She rode her favorite spider-tank, Emily, as if she were a knight on a charger. A horde of smaller spider-tanks – modeled after Emily – came up behind them like so many spiderlings following their mother. Enormous destructo-tanks rolled in the distance. Horde ground-troops consisted of humanoid robots – they resembled knights in heavy armor – each with the Horde insignia on their breastplates. Commanders of flesh and blood relayed orders to them from tanks and fliers. There wasn't a lot of air-support in this battle, since the goal was to get past the force-fields and illusion-fields set up by the Magicats and the Rebellion, the final conquest-destination being the city beneath the ground and the thick forest if they could even find it. Entrapta was tracing a hot energy-signature via one of her small data-crystals seeking likenesses to itself. Scorpia and Catra were somewhere in the rearguard while Entrapta, carrying a drive-crystal with a nasty little virus in her hip-pocket, was in the vanguard.

A dangerous place to be, too. Emily bucked and whined; dipping her out of the way as a blast from a Magicat's beam-spear almost took her head off.

Fascinating!

Entrapta adjusted her goggles. The not-Catra feline people seemed to be wielding some modified versions of the etherium crystals she'd used to power all of her robots back in Dryl as spear-tips and arrowheads… but they'd figured out power systems to them, utilizing them both as primitive weapons and as lasers.

She'd been told that there was no need to engage in combat – that all she needed to do was to take down the grids, the big illusion-grid being the main mission once she could find the thing – that was the one that required a virus - and to get in and get out as quickly as possible. Hordak did not want to lose one of his best technicians, so Entrapta had been ordered to take as few risks as possible and to get to the rear of the formation as soon as she'd done the work that only she could do. The only reason she was here and not back in the Fright Zone was because this mission required her touch.

That code she'd found on illusion spells had been a tough nut to crack. She couldn't wait to see what the corruption she'd written to it could do to a large-scale cloaking-system.

She was really close now. The barren valley had given way to trees. A laser-cannon from one of the destructo-tanks had blown a mighty hole through one of the outer force-fields.

Her attention was caught by a familiar voice and a familiar face.

"G-g-g-ghost!"

Emily was bearing down on one of the rebels – Bow, to be precise. He stood in front of a large tree and pointed a shaking hand at her.

"A ghost?" Entrapta chirped, "Where?" She tried to look where he was pointing.

That was when she felt a kick in the head. She tumbled off Emily, a large cat's foot on her face, pressing her cheek into the ground. She felt another in the small of her back.

"Secure her, Sir Tao!"

"Right, Percival! Wait, her hair! Grab her hair!"

Entrapta struggled, hair writhing instinctually, trying to wrap itself around her assailants. She heard Emily's cannon charging up.

"Hey! Wait, don't hurt her!" Bow's voice called. "I know her!"

Entrapta gasped and sputtered in the mud as her hands were being lashed behind her by one set of paws and another set was binding up her hair.

"EMILY, STAND DOWN! Remember Bow? Bow's our friend… Um… I think."

The robot chirped and settled down on its legs, acting for all the world like an obedient dog that had just been told to sit. The "child" spider-tanks behind her followed suit.

"You know this Horde -soldier?" The orange-haired lynx-man, the one addressed as Tao, asked Bow.

Bow's eyes were wide and he was breathing heavily.

Entrapta's wrist-communicator crackled to life with a rough voice. "Vesselak? Vesselak! Do you read?"

A gray-haired cat-man – one who was thinner and more elderly than the other, undid the straps on the device with the claws on his fingertips. He tossed it to the ground and stomped on it until it was broken.

"What are you-? That's mine!" Entrapta demanded.

"This is Princess Entrapta," Bow explained. "I mean… unless the Horde is playing some kind of cruel trick on us."

"You mean… the lost Princess Es'tra Vesselak of Dryl?" the gray cat, Percival, asked. "The one of your number who died on that ill-fated mission about a year ago - soon after the emergence of the She-Ra?"

"Uh, huh," Bow said.

"Died?" Entrapta asked. "No, silly! I'm alive! At least I think I'm alive. I might have to devise some kind of self-vivisection to be absolutely sure, but as far as I know, I'm displaying all vital functions!"

"You are," Bow said, stepping forward and leaning down. His eyes wobbled with tears. Entrapta could have sworn they were sparkling in the ambient sunlight. "Is it really you?"

Entrapta, hands bound behind her back and hair bound up and held by Percival, was allowed to get into a sitting-position. Bow crouched before her. He reached out slowly and touched her shoulder. Entrapta wasn't entirely comfortable with this and tried to flinch away.

"Bow, why are you acting all funny?"

"You're real," he said.

"Of course I am! Why would you think otherwise? Just because I'm a weirdo and you all left me behind because you didn't want me around anymore doesn't mean I'm not real!"

"What are you talking about?" Bow wondered allowed. "Left you behind?"

He nodded to the cat-men. "We should take her to the medical tent…get her cleaned up and those scrapes treated… and see…if the Horde did something to her. There's no telling what they did to her."

Entrapta looked on, confused, trying to assess the situation. She turned to her tanks. "Emily, I'm…I'm going to need some time to process this. How about you take your friends and make sure we have some time alone, okay? You can find my energy-trace when you need me again."

The cat-men marched her away from the din of battle while others desperately worked both magic and wiring-grids in the ground to re-establish the compromised force-grid. She was bid to sit down in an empty tent. Tao called some guards stationed in the camp to watch the prisoner while he returned to battle. Bow asked them to stay at the entranceway while he insisted on taking care of Entrapta's scrapes because he desperately wanted to speak with her – at least for as long as he could before he absolutely had to rejoin the archers.

"Entrapta, what are you doing out here?" He asked. "How… how did you survive?"

"You assumed all this time that I was deceased?" she replied as Bow washed a scuff on her cheek.

"Of course we did!" Bow yelped. Now he was flailing with his arms – expressive body language. "You got trapped in that flame-chamber! We were certain that it had roasted you alive! We didn't hear any screams so… we just…. I'm so sorry, Entrapta! There just wasn't any time! We had to get Adora and Glimmer…" He was shaking now and Entrapta noted the quiver in his voice. "We thought you were reduced to ashes…or…possibly worse."

"That's why?" Entrapta asked with a rare expression from her – a sigh. "I…I was convinced that you left me on purpose, that, you know, I was just bothering everyone and that's why you didn't come search for me."

Bow grabbed her by the shoulders, fiercely. "Why would you even think that?!" he exclaimed.

"Well," Entrapta began – she was at a loss with her hands tied behind her back and her hair bound up in ties, so she couldn't perform the body-language that was natural to her, but her eyes said enough – "You know my propensity for getting out of tough situations, vents, crawlspaces, traps… And, well, you know, even if you all thought I was dead, I figured that you'd come back for my body, because that's what people usually do. A simple hypothesis doesn't become a theory without testing and when faced with the death of a friend, people tend to want to _make sure_ that is the case."

She looked to the tent flap as she managed to free her hands with a tiny scalpel she'd shimmied out of one of her gloves while at the same time unbinding her hair with a multitool that one of her less-bound locks had found.

Bow gave her a silent nod, telling her that he wouldn't alert the guards.

"Do you want to hear the story of how I survived? It's pretty long, but holds loads of scientific interest! It started with the reflexes in my follicles going crazy… and my hair kind of wove itself into a super-tight matrix of hardened proteins! I was cocooned like a caterpillar waiting to become a butterfly…something like that! And! And…Emily! She developed an AI advanced enough that she became capable of self-sacrifice! She shielded me from the flames and took some damage. I managed to repair her after I woke up from the coma and made her better than ever. Such a good bot. We've been like two peas in a pod ever since! She's my best work ever!"

Bow was rapt.

"And then a bunch of other stuff happened, but I can tell you later. What's been going on with all of you guys and gals?"

"There was a national day of mourning for you in Bright Moon… and in Dryl," Bow said slowly. "Our banners flew at half-staff. Your birthday was declared a day of remembrance for the first New Rebellion-martyr. Your name was added to the Royalty Memorial Monument in Dryl and… Perfuma made this statue of you out of plants and flowers in Plumeria. The Rebellion BROKE UP over you…until the Battle of Bright Moon got us back together."

"So you really didn't… just ditch me?"

"No! No! No!" Bow insisted. "We've been _grieving_ you! We've missed you so much!"

Entrapta formed hands out of the ends of her hair and pented them thoughtfully as she looked at the tent's ceiling. "That's a relief to know…but also bad…"

Before she could explain anything from her side of the story, Bow interrupted her. "It doesn't matter what the Horde did to you! They must have tortured you or brainwashed you or something! Don't worry; you don't have to fight for them anymore! You're here with us now! You're back with us! We're going to keep you safe and we'll never leave you again! I promise!"

There was a racket outside – not so much of the battle growing closer as of the battle being won.

"What are those…Horde spider-tanks doing?" someone shouted over one of Bow's own contact-devices. Entrapta was certain that she recognized the voice as Adora's.

"They're attacking the Horde ranks! They're driving them back!" – Glimmer's voice.

"How did that happen? Whatever works!" - someone Entrapta didn't recognize.

"Let's not look a gift-malfunction in the mouth, darling!" – another voice that she didn't recognize.

"It looks like Emily took my request for some time alone seriously, eh-heh?" Entrapta said as she and Bow exchanged looks. "This wasn't exactly the expected outcome."

"You're right," Bow said. "She IS a good bot!"

"I guess that's what you get when you program 'em with a single-person loyalty protocol."

"I've… I've gotta tell the others – about you," Bow said hastily. "I'll be back. Sit tight. You might want to rebind yourself to keep the guards from getting nervous." 

* * *

After what was left of the Horde army had made a tactical retreat and the Battle of Halfmoon had been decided in favor of Halfmoon and the Rebellion, Bow lead Adora, Glimmer and Perfuma back through the base-camp.

"You are NOT going to believe the surprise I have for you guys!"

"Can't we just rest a little?" Adora complained. "We just fought a battle, not to mention that those little tanks that just keep scuttling along the edges of the field among the wreckage are giving me the creeps."

"DON'T mess with them!"

"You said that already. Do you know something about how they glitched up that we don't?"

"Well, he is our tech-guy," Perfuma mentioned, "although they look like something that our _former_ chief-technician would have some real answers for."

"You're practically gushing, Bow!" Glimmer observed. "What is it? You're acting like you've got a squirrel in your pants!"

Bow held his hands up in fists and shook them. "I'm bursting at the seams! This is like, the biggest surprise ever!"

"Bigger than a bunch of battle-mechs suddenly turning on their masters?" snorted Swift Wind, who was walking behind Adora.

"Yes, loads bigger! But you might not be that impressed by, it Horsey."

"My name is Swift Wind!"

"Whatever. Everyone who can fit inside a tent, come on in!"

Bow opened the flap of the temporary prisoner / medical -tent and let his friends – save the equine – inside.

Glimmer, Adora and Perfuma stood shock-still.

"Hiiiii!" Entrapta said with a little wave of both a hand and a hair-tail.

"You're al-" Glimmer began to say.

Perfuma swept down and practically tackled Entrapta in tight hug. She wept and held Entrapta close to her shoulder and ran her hands through her hair, desperate to make sure she was real.

"You're alive! How? We saw-! How did you? We are so sorry! I'm so sorry! I was supposed to protect you! Can you ever forgive us?"

"Can't…breathe…Perfuma…." Entrapta squeaked out.

Perfuma sat back, letting the young scientist get some air. Adora stood still, trying to hold back tears, but not succeeding at it. Glimmer laughed and hugged Entrapta, although not as hard as Perfuma's vine-laden crush-tackle.

"Oh, wow, everyone's crying," Entrapta observed. "Is this the normal human reaction to receiving unexpected 'good' news?"

"Yes! Oh, yes!" Perfuma answered her.

"Glimmer and I were told that you were…caught in a flame-purge," Adora said. Happy tears continued to roll down her cheeks, even as she tried to suppress the tiniest of shivers – something only Entrapta's keen eyes noticed.

"Oh," Entrapta said with a wave of her hand, "That's a long story… and kind of a funny story… and kind of not… I got a souvenir from it."

She rolled up her pant-leg to show off her burn-scar.

"Anyway, I've totally got a LOT of information about the inner workings of the Horde… and by a happy accident, I know more about First Ones tech than ever!"

"My mother will want to hear this Horde-intel!" Glimmer said excitedly. "We'll get you back to Bright Moon right away and you can tell her all you know!

"I take it you're all glad to see me back."

"More than you know," Adora said. "More than you know."


	5. Tiny Food and Big Trouble

**Trapped**

 **Chapter 5: Tiny Food and Big Trouble**

Entrapta tried to keep track of how many times she'd explained the basics of her survival-story on the way to Bright Moon. She didn't mind, although, as usual, she struggled to put into layman's terms what, exactly, she believed had happened with her hair. The specifics of strengthened protein-structures were lost on those who did not study those things as deeply as she did. She had done several experiments on her own hair since she was a child. Emily protecting her was something they understood better, strangely enough.

The robot and her "babies" were lead to a hanger where Entrapta apologized for having to put her and the others down into sleep-mode for a "little nap." Bright Moon really did not have the proper facilities for dealing with Horde-machines and common members of the Rebellion were nervous around them. She promised to return and to put them through their paces to show everyone what they could do.

Queen Angella had sent word to all of the nations once she had gotten the message from Glimmer regarding the status of Halfmoon and related events. She'd had a feast prepared and called the entire Princess Alliance to share in the celebration of Entrapta's return. Each member of the alliance was there, sitting at the long dining-hall table. Mermista and Sea Hawk had arrived and even Frosta was there, having put their lands in the care of their generals and councils.

Of course the table was laid out with a vast variety of tiny food.

Glimmer called it an "appetizer-feast" and explained to Adora that Bright Moon had them before sometimes, especially when she was small and a picky eater.

"Oh, and my dad used to get me to eat my broccoli by telling me it was tiny trees!" she said.

It catered to Entrapta because they knew what she liked. In fact, her kitchen-staff from Dryl came out to bow before the table.

"Queen Angella, your highness," she said, "You…you didn't have to go through all this trouble."

"Nonsense! It is not every day that someone is returned to us from the 'dead' – as it were. They insisted upon coming and surprising you as soon as they got word."

"Oh, Es'tra," the eldest baker said through happy tears, "What kind of trouble did you get yourself into? All of the robots you left active at Castle Dryl have been acting, well…bereft, without their master."

Entrapta picked up a mini-quesadilla with her hair and popped it into her mouth. She looked respectfully to Angella, at the head of the table. "So what's been going on in Dryl since I've been gone?" she asked. "Have they elected a gargantuan cyborg-president?"

Bow raised a finger, silently asking permission to speak. Angella nodded. "No, actually," he said, "They've been running some sort of… 'Nerd Gauntlet?' All of the country's inventors have been getting together and the ones who want to rule have been showcasing their best work to each other and the general public. It's been going on for the last year with no winner decided yet. It started…um…after the mourning-period."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about that!" Entrapta replied as she shoveled more appetizers onto her plate with the ends of her hair and took a drink from a tumbler of bright blue soda. "It was written into Dryl's constitution eons ago; if the last member of the royal line bites the dust without leaving an heir, the country is to be ruled by the smartest and most creative person or agreed-upon set of persons and that's all decided by a contest of innovation! It's rather handy, don't you think?"

"Well, I am all for any measures that keep a nation from being ruled by the stupid," Frosta spoke up.

"Indeed," Entrapta replied, "But it looks like I'm going to disappoint them all by coming back and taking my place, well, unless I want to go back…"

"Go back? What do you mean, 'Go back?" Glimmer demanded. "Do you mean to the Fright Zone? Are you joking?"

"I left a few unfinished projects back there."

"You…don't have to go back for them," Perfuma interjected, the stark memory of watching Entrapta run back into the flame-chamber for Emily assaulting her mind. "You don't need to work for them anymore. How much did they hurt you? Tell me which one of those scum hurt you and I'll hit them with sooo many flowers! And thorns!"

"Hurt me? Aw, no!" Entrapta responded with a casual laugh.

She did not notice everyone at the table suddenly staring at her.

"Well, then, what happened to you?" Bow asked.

"After I woke up and Emily dragged me out of the port, I hid around in the walls for a while… did some spying… hacked into the Horde security-matrix, hacked into a few Horde-officer personal computers… Actually saw some things I didn't really want to see there…" she stuck out her tongue for a second.

She took another sip of soda. "Oh, yeah, and I was caught… the angry-feline person found me – Catra, and that other Force Captain, the one with the coooool arachnid-tail, Scorpia."

"What did they do to you?!" Adora yelped. "Are you okay? How did you get away from them?"

"Oh, I didn't," Entrapta explained. "They're actually pretty nice once you get to know them. They took care of me… they found me little food and everything! Scorpia would make sure I got my rest… Catra thought I was super-useful…Scorpia let me study her tail, Catra let me study her reflexes… I never could figure Hordak out, though, but he made sure I was comfortable – he gave me my own lab…"

Adora's face fell. She'd never known Scorpia well, and Hordak had always been a mysterious, menacing presence, spoken of in whispers… but she had a lifetime of memories growing up with Catra. She remembered when Catra was, indeed, nice – a true and faithful friend, the closest person to her heart – until their recent conflict of values.

Her back ached.

"So they didn't torture you?" Bow asked incredulously.

"Well, Catra kind of wanted to at first, but I took her taser-thingy away from her. She took it back, but she sort of gave up after that. I kept getting out of my restraints. I don't like it when my hair isn't free. After that, they wanted to be my friends. Catra didn't think any of you were coming back for me – and it made me sad…. So, I just made the best of my situation."

She was gesturing with her hair now, twiddling fingers made of purple tendrils, oblivious to the growing look of consternation on Queen Angella's face and the shock on Glimmer's. She likewise wasn't cognizant of Spinnerella's gasping or Netossa's glaring. Frosta wore an ice-cold look on her face from the other end of the table, but it was hard for anyone to tell what she was feeling because it was her usual expression. Mermista was rubbing her forehead with her fingertips. Sea Hawk was drumming his chin thoughtfully. Adora wore a look of panic. Bow exchanged a similarly panicked look with her.

"The Horde has loads of advanced technology!" Entrapta continued enthusiastically. "And they just let me work with it! I learned so much! And… guess what, everyone! They've got a RUNESTONE! The Black Garnet! They let me touch it and everything! I wired it up to a First Ones code-crystal that Catra was nice enough to go and find for me… and, well…"

More twiddling of the hair-fingers. Increasingly disbelieving looks from around the table. She'd exited her chair, opting for one made out of her own hair, upon which she bounced up and down, fists balled in excitement, the bases of her ponytails frizzing out subtly.

"I was able to confirm my longtime theory that the Planet Etheria is connected throughout with a living network of First Ones tech! Sure, it took siphoning the energy of the planet through the Black Garnet… I wanted to turn it into a power-generator… Hordak and Catra wanted to upgrade weapons… but the experiment was such a success! The weather-patterns went all screwy for a bit, but I got to see, first-hand the TIPPING OF THE PLANETARY BALANCE!"

It was now that she noticed the glares. Chairs squeaked on the floor as people got up from them. Hands lay open-palmed, shivering on the table.

"It was so cool, you guys! You should have been there. It was awesome!"

"We WERE there!" Glimmer yelped. She was openly gesturing with her arms now. "The Whispering Woods froze over! The trees broke in the storm! The Moonstone started to fade! Clouds of darkness almost engulfed everything!"

"The seas rolled in storm," Mermista added. "Its creatures were dashed upon the rocks…"

"A hot desert-wind rolled over the polar-cap," Frosta said dispassionately. "Parts of the tundra started to melt. Some of the glaciers may never recover."

Angella stood tall and firm, her wings flared out behind her, looking for all the world like an angered eagle or an avenging celestial spirit. "Guards! Arrest her!"

"Hey, wait! What?" Entrapta yelped. A pair of Bright Moon palace-guards grabbed her by the arms. She was too confused to put up a struggle.

"Don't fight it, Es'tra," Adora said, tears at the edges of her eyes. "We'll – we'll figure it out, okay? I won't let anyone hurt you."

Entrapta decided to cooperate. It would make everything easier, just like in the Fright Zone.

She noted that this was the very first time that Adora had ever called her by her real name. 

* * *

"Wow, all of that?" Bow asked. "All that stuff must weigh as much as she does!"

He, Adora, Glimmer, Perfuma, Mermista and Sea Hawk stepped into a corridor past guards allowing them into the prison-area of the castle. In the doorway was a pile of many, many tools – scalpels, small drills, screwdrivers, tape-rolls, a couple of multitools, a digital tablet and even some devices that none of them recognized. The welding mask and goggles were among the goods, but they were of least-mass compared to everything else.

"Princess Entrapta was thoroughly searched," one of the guards gruffly informed them all. "This is what we found on her. We searched her again and we have ascertained that we have confiscated all tools that were on her person that could enable her escape or contact with the Horde."

The Alliance just stared at it all incredulously.

"Are you sure?" Adora asked. "Are you _absolutely_ sure?"

"She put up a bit of a fight when we took the pad," the other guard at the doorway said. "Otherwise, she was cooperative. We used a fine-toothed comb."

The guard held up a hair-comb.

"So, that's why it's taken six hours," Bow acknowledged with a nod.

"I'll lead you to her cell," said the first guard.

"Thank you, Rebekkah," Glimmer said.

When the group saw Entrapta behind the force-generated transparent wall, Adora tried not to laugh. Sea Hawk couldn't suppress a snicker. This was a serious situation, and the technophile stripped of her gadgets looked most despondent in her white prison-jumpsuit with too-long sleeves and baggy-legs, but the state of her hair was something to behold.

Angella had ordered a static-generation field activated in the cell – it was a low-level electric charge tempered with light-magic that was designed to disrupt electronics and communicators. It would not physically hurt an organic subject. It was a common precaution in Bright Moon's prison cells in case any captured Horde troopers had managed to smuggle in communications devices that a strip-search didn't find. In Entrapta's case, it was ordered for the sake of keeping her from using her hair for anything other than hair. As it was, both of her ponytails were frizzed out in a way that almost the entire cell was filled with fuzz. The Princesses and the two young men standing on the other side of the cell saw two giant purple puffy furballs with a tiny girl attached to them.

Entrapta gave them the most heartbreaking look possible. "We're sorry," Adora began, biting her lip. "The Queen ordered the static as an anti-escape precaution."

"I said that I wouldn't budge," Entrapta complained.

"I think I speak for all of us," Adora began with trepidation lacing her voice, suddenly serious again, "when I ask… why, Entrapta?"

"Why what?"

"Why work…for the Horde? Why did you siphon the Runestone?"

Entrapta looked at her feet as she sat on the prison cell's padded bench. "It was the best chance – perhaps my only shot ever to test my grand-unifying theory. I didn't think you wanted me anymore. Catra offered me… a place to be, something to be a part of. I had that with the Princess Alliance, but you never came back for me."

Perfuma sniffled. "If we thought there was even the slightest chance that you were alive we would have… but the fire… those purge-chambers…"

"It was my fault," Adora said, slumping her shoulders. "I lead the mission. I should have ordered a search, but… The truth is; I was a coward."

Everyone looked at Adora in surprise.

"I know what the flame-ports do," she said. She closed her eyes and balled up her fists at her sides. "A few years ago, Shadow Weaver took my squad to see what had become of a trainee who'd gotten caught in a flame-purge. I didn't know the boy, but… that 'lesson in carelessness' is something I have nightmares about _to this day_. He wasn't ashes. He was all charred skin and grease. I don't know how much he suffered, if he even had time to register pain with the intensity of the burning, but I do know this: THAT wasn't a state that any of us wanted to see _you_ in."

"You're not a coward, Adora," Glimmer offered.

Adora, for her part, looked straight at Entrapta, a serious and sad blue-eyed gaze meeting a sad and surprised red-eyed one. "Do you know how many nightmares I had about you? I kept seeing you… like that… over and over again in my mind for the first weeks after we lost you… You, looking just like that boy – only with the remains of _your_ gloves and _your_ boots melted into _your_ flesh."

Adora closed her eyes and shivered, biting her bottom lip hard. Everyone outside of the prison-cell was touching her in one way or another, a hand on her shoulder, a hand in her hand, trying to steady her and give her some kind of support. She jerked her head up suddenly, tears flying from her eyes. "I couldn't let the others see THAT! I couldn't let them have the nightmares!"

"Adora, calm down," Bow said softly. He rubbed her back. "Easy, easy."

Entrapta rubbed her chin. "Well, that makes some logical sense, now. I still would have appreciated you coming back for my remains – to, you know, make sure I _was_ remains, since you would have found me alive, but I understand now. You could not compromise the morale of your social group. I cannot say that I am not hurt, but, at the same time, I must come to the logical conclusion that your intent was commendable."

"Thank you," Adora whispered.

"So, you really weren't forced to work for the Horde," Bow brought up.

"Nope," Entrapta replied. "They just had so much… data! Soooo much to work with! And, well, with the experiment on the Black Garnet, I know more about this world we live on than ever before!"

Glimmer gave her a cold look. "You betrayed us," she snapped.

"Oh, no, really… I didn't want to hurt anyone…"

"Well, you did," Glimmer said roughly.

"I know my experiments can get a little…explosive…sometimes…"

"The Whispering Woods was wrecked! Bright Moon almost fell! Our people had to evacuate! We…we barely survived!"

Entrapta was taken aback by Glimmer's sudden ferocity. Glimmer had made two-steps toward the prison-wall and was yelling so close to her that she would have gotten a few flecks of spittle in her face if the flickering wall was not there.

"The Moonstone's power was being siphoned away! My mother used all of her strength to keep it functional! Horde robots – maybe some that YOU worked on in your time there, maybe not, but still! They almost killed her! My mother – the immortal – almost DIED because of you! And… and… There was only so much I could do to help… I was wounded by Shadow Weaver's dark magic… Entrapta, you screwed up!"

"But isn't the knowledge of the planet's connections the most valuable thing to kn-"

Glimmer was livid. "I wish you had really died!"

Everyone gasped and stared at the Princess of Bright Moon.

"You don't mean that, do you, Glimmer?" Bow queried, stunned.

Perfuma was crying.

"No, I do!" Glimmer insisted. "It would have been so much easier. We mourned you and moved on. But this… _this_! This betrayal! It's worse than death!"

Glimmer stormed down the corridor.

"I'll… I'll go talk to her," Bow offered hastily as he chased her. "Glimmer, wait!"

Mermista sighed and regarded Entrapta. "You really did it, Geek Princess. Glimmer is right. Unlike her right now, I'm still glad to see you alive, but you screwed up bad."

"I am certain a way can be afforded… for making amends, perhaps?" Sea Hawk offered.

"I don't know, Hawk," Mermista pondered. "This situation is pretty bad."

Perfuma couldn't stop sobbing. "It's my fault this happened! All of it! If I had watched you better... kept us together…"

Adora looked the encaged Entrapta, who looked back thoughtfully.

"I really didn't mean to hurt anyone. Catra and Scorpia were my new friends and I was making them happy…and I just… I just wanted to _know_ …"

Adora sighed. "The true question here is… what will you decide from here? Where do your loyalties lie? Entrapta, you need to think upon this and give us an answer."


	6. Innocent Criminals

**Trapped**

 **Chapter 6: Innocent Criminals**

Adora walked through the receiving hall of Castle Bright Moon. It was loud. Groups of people gathered, all making conversation with each other. It was as cacophonous as Frosta's ballroom at the Princess Prom, but far less formal and cheerful.

"I'm inclined to trust Adora on this one," Spinnerella said, standing apart from Netossa with her hands on her hips. This was rare. The two were having an actual argument. "Entrapta was being held and manipulated, we cannot hold all of her actions against her."

"We certainly can!" Netossa voiced loudly. "Don't you remember the Battle of Bright Moon? How we were almost reduced to wreck and ruin?"

"We pulled through – together."

"I could have _lost_ you, Spin! I cannot forgive that! If I had lost you, I would have lost my world!"

"We both held our own in battle very well. You don't have to worry about my welfare that much…In fact, isn't it a bit futile in a war?"

"No, it is not!"

Adora watched as Netossa folded her arms in a frump and Spinnerella gestured with pleading hands.

"Nothing can stand in our way – together! Not even…our confused friends."

"Confused my butt! I'm not buying the 'absent-minded professor' bit! She's Horde now!"

Glimmer paced, conversing with Bow, Mermista, Sea Hawk and Perfuma. Adora decided to avoid her for the moment, but was sure she'd overheard Bow saying something about Entrapta spilling all kinds of secrets about Horde technology to him when he'd last visited her. Glimmer threw up her hands (with sparkles) openly wondering if the information was the least bit trustworthy.

"Well, we have confiscated her recorder," he said, "And it all seems to check out against that."

Adora turned her attention to where Angella was walking and talking with Frosta. It was a striking contrast to see the tall Queen of Bright Moon against the tiny barely twelve-year old Frosta. Frosta was giving her a cool gaze and looked just as in-command as her ageless fellow royal.

"Well," Frosta said, "I was not in the Alliance yet, so it was not a betrayal of the Kingdom of Snows. Entrapta's fate is in the hands of Bright Moon… but if she were under my jurisdiction, the law would be clear: She would be exiled to the Far Tundra to deal with the wolves and the Selkies!"

"So, you are positing execution," Angella replied.

Adora's blood froze and she stood still in her tracks.

"Essentially, yes," Frosta answered matter-of-factly. "Not as barbaric as the noose or an axe, a sentence that does leave open the remote possibility of survival, but, truly…just as effective."

"Bright Moon has other means," Angella replied sagely, folding her hands before her. Adora breathed a small sigh of relief.

Frosta frowned – stronger than usual. "You must remember that she… in her own words, 'hacked' the planet. Whatever her standing, she may be too dangerous to leave alive."

"I am aware of that," Angella said with a small nod. "Even if she has no sense of malice, it is often oblivious evil that does the most damage. However, there is also the possibility of a war with Dryl to think about."

The queen twitched her wings and turned. "Adora?"

"Yes, your highness," the girl said, snapping to. She almost dropped the pair of books she had in her arms. "I seek permission to visit Princess Entrapta. I believe these reading-materials will pass inspection?"

"Hmmm," Angella said, taking the books. One bore the title "Ethics in Science." She handed the tome back to Adora. The other, much slimmer book she raised an eyebrow at.

"Entrapta likes cute things. I thought it should be harmless enough."

"Very well. You may see her."

"Thank you, your highness."

Adora found herself escorted by guards to the prison-wing. The guards left her in front of the selected cell.

"Entrapta?"

The incarcerated Princess was picking at a tray of food with a plastic fork. Her hair wasn't as puffy as it had been before as the static-field had been turned down to a lower level -something of a reward for cooperation. Arcs of light danced over it, indicating that it was still charged enough to have limits in its capabilities.

"My food is problematic."

"I can see that."

Entrapta was trying to cut some kind of bland-looking patty in gravy into small squares and not having much success with the edges of the dull fork.

Adora took a small breath and continued. "I can try to get you something better than the standard prison-food, if you'd like. I don't know if I'll have much success, but I'll try."

"You don't have to do that. It's still better than most of the stuff I had in the Fright Zone, although Scorpia was nice enough to try to make little squares and cupcakes out of what they did have. Have you met Scorpia? She's really such a sweetheart. I know the Rebellion says the Horde are all bad people, but she isn't at all."

"I've met her a few times," Adora stated, "passing in the halls. We didn't talk much. I mean…outside of battles."

"They took care of me," Entrapta said, "She and Catra. You and the other Princesses did, too. I don't really know what to think anymore. Who is supposed to be 'good' and who is supposed to be 'evil?' I've met people who are super-fun to be around on both sides."

"Sometimes, I'm not sure, either," Adora confessed. "Look at me, I'm She-Ra now, protector of Etheria, heroine of the Rebellion and, well, I used to be a Horde-soldier, a Force Captain. Maybe none of us are completely good or completely bad. Still, I've seen what they do – what the Horde does to innocent people. I used to think that the Horde was a force for order and for good until I saw the truth with my own eyes. People can be nice, even good-intentioned, but still wrong."

"I talked to Bow earlier. The others have come in at odd hours. Glimmer still hasn't seen me in days, though, not since she told me she wished that I was dead."

Adora winced. "She doesn't mean that. She's just got a lot of complex feelings she needs to work through right now. Anyway, I brought you a couple of books. You must be bored."

"Incredibly! They won't let me have anything to tinker with in here! I might have tried to fiddle with the force-field, but I gave my word to stay put."

"We thank you for keeping it. It'll work out, trust me."

Adora punched a code into a keypad outside of the cell, opening up a small parting in the field through which she passed the books. She carefully watched Entrapta's hair to make sure she wasn't trying to pass a few hairs through it, as enfeebled as her hair was right now.

"The thick book is a little more your level," Adora explained. "I thought it subject matter you might be interested in. The other-"

"So cute!"

Entrapta hunched up on her cot happily paging through the picture book of baby animals that Adora had passed her way, leaving "Ethics in Science" beside her for heavy reading later.

"It's… Glimmer's," Adora said, nervously grabbing one of her arms. "It's one of her childhood books she still has laying around. It's silly, but… I like looking at it. It's cheered me up when I've felt down. I thought it might do the same for you. I saw all of those small animal paintings in your castle…"

Entrapta was lost to the book for the moment. "Puppies! Aw, little piglets! Oh, those kittens – so tiny!"

"I'm glad you like it."

"I made a robot-puppy once, but the voice-programming turned out a little overzealous. I couldn't get him to stop yipping. I had to shut him down until I could figure out some fine-tuning, but I sort of forgot to finish that project when the mines started turning up some really great First Ones artifacts. I used to have flesh and blood pets, too, when I was a little girl. I stopped keeping them when they'd… get old and…die. That cat-painting you saw in my castle… that was Mr. Boots. He was my best kitty. I didn't really want to keep any more after… him. Robots are easier to deal with. They lose function sometimes, but don't really die. I can fix them right up and they stay cute forever."

Adora was taken aback by this sudden bit of depth.

"Did you ever have any pets, Adora?"

"Hmm… Swift Wind doesn't really count. He's his own horse. He just lets me ride him because we're friends. Back in the Fright Zone, we didn't have pets."

"Catra doesn't count?"

Adora turned red. "No, no, she's a person… well, she's part cat, but mostly human and…NO!"

"Cat-people, scorpion-people, lizard-people… so many types of people there, yet no animal-pets. Fascinating."

Entrapta finished thumbing through the picture-book and put it down. She turned to face Adora. "I have a favor to ask," she said.

"Sure. Anything."

"If Angella has me executed and they cut off my head, could you make sure someone does a scientific study on it? I mean, I want someone to hold up my head and I'll try to communicate! I'll twitch my eyelids or look around or something. I've always been curious as to how long consciousness can exist in a dying brain once the head has been cleanly severed from the body. It won't do my personal research any good, since I'll die, but scientists who come after me may find it valuable…"

"GAH, ENTRAPTA!"

"Also, could a study be done on the properties of my hair? I'm pretty sure I have some kind of radiating consciousness-thing going on with it. I wonder how long it can continue to move once my head is separated from my body. I also wonder if its reactions would be voluntary or involuntary."

Adora was struck with the immediate mental image of Entrapta's dead, bleeding disembodied head crawling around on a floor, suspended and ambulating upon tendrils of hair. She shivered, clawing her hands out before her, trying desperately not to throw up.

"Entrapta, no! Stop talking about things like that! I'm going to have nightmares for a week, now! Queen Angella is NOT going to execute you!"

"I don't know about that. She seemed pretty mad."

"Listen… Angella believes in redemption. I am living proof of that. I am a former Horde-soldier and I turned things around. She gave me a chance, so she'll do the same for you."

"You didn't exactly get the chance to commit any major war-crimes or massive environmental damage."

Adora sighed. "You're one of us, Entrapta. She knows this. We all know – especially since we've listened to your recordings – that things were unclear for you and that… Catra-" she trembled at the mention of the name, "did a fair degree of…emotional manipulation. Besides, Bright Moon doesn't handle things that way. At least, I don't think they do."

Entrapta drummed her chin thoughtfully. "As I see it, I have four options. I have been analyzing them, weighing the pros and cons of each.

"Option One: I could go back to the Horde. Pros: They have advanced technology to play with and ample opportunities to further my studies. They have Scorpia and Catra, who encouraged me to pursue my passions, no matter how…explosive. Cons: The food is not tasty or tiny. I couldn't find any fizzy beverages except for the ones I made myself. Working with them requires potential harm to people who are nice, creating what one would call…an ethical quandary?"

Adora nodded. "Ethical quandaries are a big con," she noted.

"Also Con: Rejoining the Horde is unfeasible for me at this time, since I am being held by the Rebellion and no rescue party has yet breached Castle Bright Moon's defenses. It is possible that Catra and Scorpia have left me behind."

Adora nodded again, with a sadder expression.

"Option Two: I could rejoin the Rebellion and the Princess Alliance. Pros: I can be with my Princess-friends again. I have missed them all very much."

"That's right," Adora said with a smile.

"I can continue and create further trade deals among the kingdoms for Dryl. The food is much better in the Rebellion. Cons: Less access to advanced technology and missed opportunities in what I was learning with the Horde. Having to fight against Scorpia and Catra, whom I also considered friends. Further Pros: Less of an ethical quandary on a greater scale even if I remain conflicted in interpersonal matters. I can make up for the loss of ready-access to Horde technology with any captured Horde-technology future battles bring. Making weapons for the Rebellion with the knowledge that I have on hand will force me to be creative, and that's always fun. I may continue with great access to First Ones tech through companionship with the person of She-Ra."

"It sounds like you have more pros with coming back to the Alliance," Adora offered.

Entrapta continued her analysis.

"Option Three: I could… bounce around between sides? Pros: I could potentially reap the benefits of both worlds and it sounds fun. Cons: Bouncing around sounds like it would make me nauseous. Also, I would become a huge liability for both sides, to the point that at least one side would seek my termination – not from the job, but from life. Conclusion: It is unfeasible."

"Yeah, it sounds like it would be. Living your life as a game of capture-the-flag wouldn't be very fun in the long run."

Entrapta went on.

"Option Four: I just go back home to Dryl and forget about the war, just like it was before. Pros: A life that I am used to. No battlefield dangers – little risk. Cons: Netural territory usually becomes engulfed by conquering forces eventually. I'd have to go back to keeping all of my research private and after experiencing alliances, it seems like the loneliest option."

"We want you back," Adora said. "I am vouching for you. So is Bow and so is Perfuma. Mermista is a little on the fence and you know Sea Hawk – he goes with whatever Mermista goes with. Glimmer, well, she'll come around. She certainly doesn't want you executed. The worst that would happen would be…further containment? Even that isn't… what we want. There are rumors that the people of Dryl are preparing for war if that's what it takes for them to get you free and to get you back. None of us want that. I know that Queen Angella does not want that. It's hard enough that we are fighting the Horde – to have a secondary war with Dryl would just be… too much."

"Looks like it's rejoining the Rebellion it is, then!" Entrapta said cheerfully. She stood up and faced Adora. "However, regaining lost trust stands to be a bit tricky…"

"I actually have an idea. I think I know something that you might be able to help us with," Adora proposed. "You… know all about the Runestones now, correct?"

"I wouldn't say I know eeeeverything about them. There's still a lot of First Ones secrets left to learn."

"You boosted the Black Garnet's power through some sort of tapping into it…" Adora began, "Hacking the planet?"

"Correct," Entrapta affirmed.

"Could you do something like that again? To another stone? Not as strong, but a little power boost?"

"Well, sure, if provided with a First Ones crystal with sufficient intact code. It is probably impossible to get the one I hooked up to the Black Garnet, but the one in Castle Dryl might work."

"The one that corrupted your systems?"

"Yep! I got it fixed up so that it doesn't do that anymore. At least, I don't _think_ it will do that anymore. Unless you know of other discs. I'd tracked the possibility of one or more existing in Halfmoon."

"I'll see if I can get Angella to open up talks with the Magicats."

"Hmmm, what are you thinking of, Adora? Did you want me to try to hack into the Moonstone?"

"N-No!" Adora yelped. "Angella will never let you touch it! However, Perfuma has already confided in me that she would trust you to work with the Heart Blossom. You see, The Whispering Woods is still recovering, even after all of this time. Perfuma has been trying to heal the forest, but hasn't been making as much progress as she would like to. She believes that if the power of the Heart Blossom were boosted, that she could restore the Whispering Woods in full."

"So, you want me to hack into the Heart Blossom to reverse the damage I did with the Black Garnet-hack," Entrapta concluded.

"Essentially, yes. If you are willing to do it."

"I would be honored. It sounds like fun!"

"Don't…go overboard, okay? I mean… I need to propose this to Queen Angella first to front the idea… Maybe if we're lucky, there won't even be a trial…"

"A trial? What do you mean?" Entrapta asked, cocking her head. "You mean like a courtroom? Were you going to try to be my lawyer?"

"Um, sort of. Everyone's trying to figure out what to do with you. The Emissaries from Dryl want you back. They've already cut off all contracting and trade with Bright Moon annnnd… They're sort of talking about war? As I said." Adora pented two of her fingers nervously. "Then, as I said, Perfuma has been vouching for you. She feels like it was her fault that you got left on the Fright Zone in the first place. The Kingdom of Snows is officially indifferent, but Frosta is suspicious of you. The emissary from Halfmoon tells us that her people are impressed with how your robots turned on the Horde and turned the tide of the last battle."

"Emily!"

"Bow is… taking care of her," Adora assured.

"Whatever you do to me, don't scrap her, please! Or the babies!"

"They are fine, Entrapta."

"Are you sure? They do have a loyalty protocol programmed to me. If they're online, I'm surprised they haven't lasered down the walls of this cell yet."

"I said that Bow was taking care of Emily, not that she or the others are turned on. He's just been, you know, polishing their casings, taking down drawings of their designs, that kind of thing."

"Oh, good!"

"The Etherian Maker's Community is for you. Half of Bright Moon is for you. The other half is… sort of calling for your blood, to be honest." Adora sighed.

"Ooh, that's not good."

"No, it isn't."

"I mean," Entrapta explained, "If Bright Moon and Dryl go to war… it's not just the people you have to worry about. My castle alone has an army of helper-bots that are all loyal to me. Well, when they aren't infected by a First Ones virus. Not to mention all of the smart-machines in the cities… the autonomous mining-cars…the drill-bots… that giant mecha mountain-crusher I was working on… He's got arm-cannons! And I'm sure it'll be easy for my kingdom to find a troubled teenager to pilot him!"

"A troubled teenager?" Adora asked with a raised eyebrow.

"The bot runs on angst!"

"I think we're all a little more afraid of Dryl than we are of the Horde right now, Entrapta."

"So this means you'll definitely give me a shot at rejoining the Princess Alliance?"

"Yes… if we can convince the majority Alliance-council to let us go through with it, I think boosting the Heart Blossom and restoring the Whispering Woods would be a great act of redemption."

"Sold!"

"Good. She-Ra will make the proposal."

Adora turned to leave.

"Adora?"

"Hmmm?"

"Don't forget what you said about trying to get me some better food."

Adora smiled.


	7. Defendant

**Trapped**

 **Chapter 7: Defendant**

The seats were packed in the Grand Court Room. It was a different room than Bright Moon Castle's war room for the Princess Alliance – much larger and rarely used. Angella sat upon a throne at the head of the room – acting as much a judge as Queen. She reserved the final say in sentencing. The rest of the area was encircled in benches with areas filled with representatives from the various kingdoms of Etheria. The box-area for the Crimson Waste was notably empty. Once upon a time, before the coming of the Horde, they would have had a place in the world council, too. This was something of a "united nations," called in for important business for any representatives across Etheria willing to gather. It also, this day served as a criminal court for someone accused of international crimes.

Guards lead a small girl in, shambling forth in her white Bright Moon prison jumpsuit with the too-long sleeves over handcuffed wrists. She-Ra flanked her – not merely Adora, but the shining guardian herself, in full glory. It wasn't a standard lawyer's uniform, but it was the most formal of wear that Adora could think of. Entrapta's hair was bound behind her, her twin-tails tightly trussed together into one into a rounded bunch that only reached her rear.

She took a seat behind a podium before Queen Angella's dais. She-Ra sat beside her.

The entirety of the Princess Alliance was there, along with representatives among their people. Adora wondered, specifically, how Mermista had managed to scrounge up as many people in her area as she had for this, given that the only statesman she'd met in Sailineas had also served as Mermista's butler.

Perfuma's people looked completely out of place. There she was, looking on with pleading eyes. Her stands were filled with people dressed in the breezy clothes of Plumeria - several of the men with no shirts at all, looking completely underdressed.

Frosta's court looked overdressed in their fur-cloaks. Each and every one of them carried a severe countenance.

Entrapta looked over to the area where Dryl was represented. "Hiii!" she said, trying to wave with her cuffed hands. The podium held several statesmen and stateswomen that Adora hadn't met when she'd been in the kingdom. Their dress was not much unlike Entrapta's usual garb – the work-clothing of miners and tinkerers, coveralls and pocketed vests, although they were clean and each man or woman wore, over that, shining steel pauldrons and interesting magnification-goggles and monocles which looked like they were powered by clockworks. In fact, Adora thought that one of the women looked like she was ready to attend a state-dinner, then to go work on an airship all in the same day.

There were some robots in Dryl's podium and two of them were especially striking. One had a shock of purple hair embedded into its cranium and another bore an artificial mustache.

"Mumsy and Daddums!" Entrapta shouted, "You came!"

"Anything for you, dear," said the robot with the purple hair and the singular eyepiece. Its voice was unmistakably human, but bore the slight bit of static of an oft-used recording run through some kind of processing system to piece the parts of the vocalization together.

Castaspella and her courtiers sat in the seats for Mysticor. Antlered-folk representing Thaymor sat in one of Bright Moon's stretches. Cat-folk represented Halfmoon; lead by a stately feline queen, flanked by someone Adora had met before the Battle of Halfmoon – Chancellor Cloudfoot. Tao and Percival were also there. Glimmer, Netossa and Spinnerella all sat together in Bright Moon's pews. Bow, however, sat with a gathering made up of mixed peoples from all over Etheria – the Makers' Community. Several of them were in Dryllian dress. Others wore fancy armors, painting-smocks and fine clothing with intricate designs.

Stepping to a podium opposite Entrapta's was a large male Minotaur. He addressed Angella.

"Queen Angella," he said, deep-voiced, we have the evidence for the Princess of Dryl's activities with the Horde, including an extensive record in her own words via her recorded logs. It has already been presented to you, personally, but now, if it pleases Your Highness, may be brought before the representatives of the rest of the Etherian kingdoms."

"You may play back various relevant logs in order, Minister Tauren," Angella ordered.

"Could you give me that back when you're done?" Entrapta asked.

"Ssssh!" Adora hushed her. "We'll get it back, don't worry."

Adora, for her part, tried not to wince when one of the first Fright Zone logs was played, the "first after survival" log.  
 _  
"The Princesses and Bow and Sea Hawk will come back for me."_ Entrapta's recorded voice sounded. _"Perfuma asked me to stay in once place, so if I stay in the immediate area, I'll be easy to find. I hope… they come soon. I'm gonna go night-night now."_

Adora hated the tiredness and hurt in the recording. She gave Entrapta a sympathetic look.

More logs were played, each in succession. Entrapta smiled, seeming like she did not care that she was in a courtroom-setting. She was proud of the discoveries she had made.

When a certain familiar voice had come over some of the recordings, Adora had had enough. Angella gave her permission to speak.

"Can't you see? That is Catra – she was lying to Entrapta and employing psychological manipulation tactics!"

Angella nodded again. "Noted and sustained," she said. "Continue, Minister Tauren."

Tauren continued to play voice-clips up through the entire Black Garnet Experiment.

A murmur went throughout the room. "Dryl demands her freedom!" bellowed one of the Dryllian representatives.

"Give us our daughter back!" the mustachioed robot insisted, punctuating his speech with a few unhappy screeches and beeps.

"Her danger remains clear!" Frosta said, voice raised, but still cool.

"Please don't hurt her!" Perfuma pleaded. "We just got her back! We can turn this around!"

"Halfmoon found her as first an enemy, then an ally," Minister Cloudfoot of Halfmoon added with a raised paw. "Her technological prowess is useful."

"Speaking for the Maker's Community," Bow said with a small bow, "We have discussed the matter and believe that Entrapta's contributions to science outweigh any recent mistakes she has made."

"Our forest was wrecked! We nearly perished! She deserves the noose!" - The mayor of Thaymor was most infuriated.

"No!" Glimmer shouted suddenly. She teleported to the front of the room, in front of her mother's throne and gestured with wide arms.

"Glimmer!" Angella shouted at the breach of protocol.

"We can't… we can't kill her! That's not the way we handle things in Bright Moon! And…" she sighed, "She's my friend. I admit that it might have been easier if what we thought happened to her did happen, but… we can't! We just can't!"

Entrapta hunched herself over the podium as well as she was able, eyes wide, just staring at Glimmer.

"If you take her life, prepare to lose more lives among your people," one of the representatives of Dryl huffed, adjusting his monocle. "Es'tra is ours and we are prepared to go to war over… a violation of our treaties."

"Order!" Angella called. She sat up from her throne and stood, wings spread wide. "Will the defendant step forward?"

"That's your cue," Adora said, nudging Entrapta. "I'll be right by your side."

"Oh, yeah, right," Entrapta replied, stepping down the pathway to stand before the dais.

Angella addressed her formally. "Es'tra Vesselak, High Princess of Dryl, you stand accused of crimes against Bright Moon and all of Etheria. What say you in your defense?"

Entrapta looked up slowly. "I am afraid that I am guilty as charged," she said. "However, I gained a lot of knowledge that could potentially aid the Rebellion should I be spared."

"Your Highness," Adora interjected, "I have already proposed a path to redemption for Entrapta to you that I wish to bring before the court. Princess Perfuma of Plumeria, will you please step down here?"

Perfuma descended her seat and came down to the front floor.

"You may address the court," Angella said.

"She-Ra and I have devised a plan!" Perfuma said to the court, opening her arms wide. "The Whispering Woods is still in need of healing and it has been taking me all of my strength. Entrapta now has the capability to 'fine-tune' the Runestones. If you will hear us out, she has already agreed to assist the Rebellion by tapping into the Heart Blossom and boosting its power enough to enable me to do a full-heal on the forest!"

"And what if she betrays us again?" - The mayor of Thaymor again.

"She shall be guarded the entire time," She-Ra said, "Not only by the generals of Bright Moon, but by me personally."

"If I can get a look at it, I'm sure I can get it running to full capacity," Entrapta said excitedly. "Oh! And I won't over-power it this time! I'm happy to help and to make amends!"

The council was in a clamor again, with representatives of the many Etherian nations all yelling over each other and the ministers from Dryl reminding them all of the possibility of war.

"Will the ruling representatives step forward and cast their votes regarding this plan or suggestions for sentencing?" Angella ordered.

Adora took Entrapta back to their podium and they watched the proceedings nervously.

Two votes for indefinite imprisonment. One vote for exile to an inhospitable wasteland. One vote for outright execution. Six votes for the proposed redemption-plan, which included Plumeria's vote. The remaining votes were undecided.

"By a narrow margin, it has been decided," Angella concluded. "Princess Entrapta shall be given to the custody of the Princess Alliance excluding Frosta until such time as she is able to prove her loyalty by boosting the power of the Heart Blossom. My own guard shall keep a watch upon her and she will remain in Bright Moon until passage to Plumeria is prepared."

The Queen stepped down and gently undid Entrapta's handcuffs. She spared a look to She-Ra. "I entrust her to you as well as to my daughter."

The first thing that Entrapta did was to start unbinding her hair. A minute later, she used it to bound over to a particular pair of robots that were waiting for her with open arms.

"Mumsy! Daddums!"

They hugged her gently and both called her their "Purple Pumpkin."

She-Ra released her power to turn back into Adora. "Uh, don't worry, Your Highness," she said to Angella.

"It must be quite straining to hold that power for long," she agreed.

Bow, Glimmer, Mermista, Sea Hawk and Perfuma gathered with Adora as they wandered toward where Entrapta was speaking with the delegation from Dryl, in particular to a portly gentleman wearing a brass and thick-glass magnifier eyepiece and a prominently-didsplayed pocket-watch on his vest.

"It's alright, Minister Von Braun. I'm just going to be staying in Bright Moon with my friends for a few days. Calm down. I'll be fine."

"I will certainly not calm down! Bright Moon had you imprisoned!"

"Aw, it wasn't so bad. Stay if you'd like and work it out with Queen Angella. We'll decide the status of the contracting after I hack the Heart Blossom."

"Quite."

Entrapta turned around at the gathered Princess Alliance. Perfuma was giving her an odd smile. "Your prime minister?"

"Yep!" Entrapta chimed. "And my parental units!" She gestured to the pair of robots that stood behind her.

The one with the slightly more "feminine" build held up its metal hand in a little wave. "Pleased to meet you," it said.

"Your friendship with our daughter will not be forgotten," the "masculine" one intoned.

"Well, this is getting a bit weird," Mermista commented.

"I do rather like the proud mustache!" Sea Hawk commented.

"Yes….pleased to meet you," Perfuma said, trembling as the father-unit took her by the hand for a cordial shake.

"Hmmm…they weren't among the infected bots we saw when everything went crazy" Bow observed.

"I had them offline in storage at the time – repairs. I know, I know," Entrapta said with a wave of a now moveable ponytail, "A lot of people are put-off that my parental units are actually…um…units, but my biological parents are long-gone, so they're all I have." She flashed a smile laced with just a little sadness. "Aren't they cute?"

"Um…yeah," Adora began. "Mr. and Ms. Vesselak?" she asked hesitantly, "Your daughter needs to have a sleepover with us for a little while. She has to go on an important mission for the sake of the world."

"Understood," the one with the shock of purple hair said. "We will stand by with Minister Von Braun."

* * *

"Best Friends Alliance Sleepover!" Bow gushed as most of the Princess Alliance was gathered in Adora's bedroom.

"Bow, this is serious," Glimmer reminded him. "You do have your stunner arrows just in case? And I'm fully-charged and ready to teleport if she makes a break for it."

"Relax, Glimmer, she's with us again!"

"We have her word," Adora said. "The plan is that we all take shifts on watch – I've laid it out on this chart here, and we should all be rested for the trip to Plumeria in the morning."

"She'd be more secure back in a cell."

"That's not fair, is it?" Bow reasoned. "If she is to be one of us again, we have to treat her like one of us."

"I got the snacks!" Perfuma said, bringing in a tray laden with meticulously crafted tiny things from the castle kitchen.

"I've got the scrap," Mermista groaned, setting down a shoulder-bag filled with odds and ends. "I hope it will keep her occupied enough to stay in one place."

"Well, I pieced together most of her toolset – what the guards would give back to us!" Bow said as he unrolled a tool-belt. He dug into his back pocket, as well. "Oh, and I've got her favorite screwdriver, too!"

Bow regarded this last item wistfully. He smiled at it. It once served as a memorial to a fallen friend and now he could return it to her.

Glimmer sat in a chair and crossed her arms. "I still can't believe she was in the Horde, even if she was manipulated." She sighed deeply. "But… I must say, I'm glad to have her back and on our side again, for what it's worth."

"Well, of course," Mermista observed. "Anyone with the potential to create armies of rampaging destructo-bots is someone we'd rather have on our side than on the other."

"I brought my violin! We can play sea shanties all night long!"

Mermista regarded Sea Hawk with a glare. "Who invited him? Aren't sleepovers supposed to be girls-only?"

"Bow is here," Perfuma observed.

"The goal is to rest, Sea Hawk," Glimmer complained. "Tomorrow's going to be a long day. And Bow has been my best friend since we were little. He's an honorary girl."

"Hey!"

"It's true!"

"I take it as a compliment. What is taking Entrapta so long? Everything's ready for her, we've got a bed made for her and everything. She's been in the bathroom for at least an hour…"

Adora knocked on the door. "Entrapta?"

"Ah, yes!" came the reply. "Hold on, I'm just trying to towel off my hair. I'll be out in precisely 31.5 seconds! Try not to laugh, okay?"

The door to the bathing room slid open revealing Entrapta dressed in a thick white nightgown that had been provided to her and a mess of straight, half-damp hair that practically swallowed her small form.

Mermista held a hand over her mouth trying to stifle a giggle, having it come out as a snort.

"Frankly," Entrapta complained, "I don't see how you here in Bright Moon get along without any dedicated hair-care droids. I can build you some if you want."

"Eh, here," Adora said, offering a hairbrush. Entrapta grabbed it with a hair-tendril and found a comb on one of the dressers and started combing herself out.

"Wait, hey! I've got an idea!" Perfuma offered. "Just sit down on your bedroll and let us take care of that!"

"Ooh!" Bow said, eyes sparkling. "Please, Entrapta, let us do your hair! It'll be a social-experiment bonding-experience!"

Adora stifled a laugh. "Come on, guys, I'm sure she can take care of herself."

Glimmer giggle-snorted. "Bow always liked to braid the hair on my dolls," she said.

"Hey, lots of men are barbers and stylists!" he retorted.

"Just because I won't let you touch mine."

"I can definitely see why everyone is enraptured," Sea Hawk added, "Unbound, Entrapta's hair is like so many heaving waves of a purple sea!"

"I uh…could use some help with it," Entrapta reluctantly admitted, "You know, since I don't have any of my helper-bots around."

"Ugh, this is so…girly!" Mermista complained from her chair as she passed combs and hair-bands in what became a hair-styling party. Even Glimmer took a seat beside the technician and started brushing.

Entrapta, for her part, investigated the hand-bag of metal scrap. Bow handed her a small tool.

"Phillip!" she exclaimed as she held the little screwdriver to her chest as if hugging a tiny pet.

"Yeah, you dropped…um..him… back in the Fright Zone. I've been sort of keeping him – and using him in your honor."

"Aw, Bow, I'm touched."

He caught sight of her scarred leg and looked away in guilt, turning his attention back to her hair. Unexpectedly, a tendril of it wrapped him in a light hug. He blushed.

Glimmer also caught sight of her bare leg and winced. "I'm sorry…for how I've been treating you lately," she said. "You've made some mistakes recently, but… I've made mistakes, too. I owe you more. You got that trying to rescue me."

"Oh, what? Oh… my leg."

"Yeah. Does it still hurt?"

"Nah."

Pretty soon, Entrapta, fiddling with the provided scrap, had bodged together a tiny wheeled robot that sped over to the snack tray and brought her little parcels of food while everyone else was absorbed in combing out and styling her hair. Everyone was swapping stories and laughing – for the first time in a long while.

It was good to have friends again.


	8. Nature's Power

**Trapped**

 **Chapter 8: Nature's Power**

A wagon rolled on under the dappled light of the forest. Two young women sat in it, entertaining themselves with successive games of "Rock, Paper, Scissors." Perfuma complained that Entrapta wasn't playing it right, since she'd been pulling actual rocks, sheets of paper and a pair of scissors from her impressive mane while Perfuma was just miming the shapes with her hands. She laughed all the same and wondered just how Entrapta could keep so much stuff in her hair.

"Don't you already have a lot of pockets in your clothes?"

"Well, yeah, but if I have something on me with a strengthened protein-matrix, imbued with magicka, I'm going to use it. It rarely hurts."

"Rarely?"

"Well," Entrapta said, curling one of her tendrils at her chin and looking skyward, "I did once forget where I'd stashed a scalpel I'd failed to cap and it dug past one of my ponytails into my scalp. It was just a little cut – didn't bleed much."

Perfuma winced.

"Actually, we creative-types get a lot of little scars, isn't that right, Bow?"

Bow glanced back from his seat driving the wagon.

Entrapta excitedly pulled off one off her gloves, "They aren't readily-seen, not like my leg, but I've got a few from errors in metal-cutting, a couple from electrical-burns and my torches… I was once working with combustible gas and the resulting explosion took off one and one-half of my eyebrows – they grew back in…"

"Please…stop…" Perfuma begged.

Bow smiled. Entrapta was much more in her element now. Her regular clothing had been returned to her as well as her tools. Much of her stuff was in the cargo-wagon behind the passenger-wagon, along with many pieces of equipment that she'd requested from Queen Angella for work on the Heart Blossom. The Princess of Dryl sat with Perfuma in a small buckboard-style wagon that Bow was driving. Others were riding wagons or horses, or walking as they saw fit. Emily and her "children" marched beside their "mother's" transport, serving as a kind of guard-detail.

The group wasn't traveling through the Whispering Woods-proper - too dangerous. Instead, to get from Bright Moon to Plumeria, they were on a trail through a stretch of land called the Freedom Forest. It was home to many rare animals – including, supposedly, a type of koala-owl, which was thought to be extinct, although there were a few claims to sightings. Entrapta paid attention to the forest, seeking rare creatures, but all she and anyone else found along their path were common rodents and songbirds. She postulated that the smell and noise of humans and their steeds were driving all of the more skittish animals away.

Swift Wind descended from the air next to the wagon, carrying Adora. "Hfffmph!" he snorted, giving Bow a glare. "Forcing these horses to do all of the pulling!"

"It's alright, Swifty," Adora soothed. "We're taking regular stops. No one's getting pushed too hard. I'm sure they're all happy to help!"

"Enslavement if you ask me! Did you even ask them?"

"Aw, Arrow's an old friend!" Bow assured, nodding to the horse that he was driving. "When I led him to the wagon, he stepped right up to the harness! I told him that we were going to Plumeria and he practically jumped at the chance!"

Swift Wind sidled up to Arrow and they exchanged soft whickers.

"Plumeria has the sweetest bluegrass I'll ever eat?" the unicorn translated into human speech, his ears perking straight up. "Then, what are we waiting for! Let's go!"

With that, he suddenly took off into the air. Adora gripped the base of his mane with a "Whaaaaaaaooooooo!" as she almost tipped right off him.

The sizable caravan of Princesses and guards moved along until the trees took on an almost supernatural sheen and the ground was covered in grasses and flowers of all colors – thicker than in the wild-wood and along the old dirt roads they had been traveling. Voices sounded up ahead of Bow's wagon as the common people of Plumeria were greeting Bright Moon's detail.

"Oh, we're coming up on the square!" Perfuma chimed. "Keep it steady and slow, Bow."

As the trees parted into open sky before the creak of the wagon's wheels, Entrapta stared up, and up, and up. Bow got an uncomfortable shiver.

"I didn't have the chance – or the heart – to take it down," Perfuma said. "And what with all that happened recently in Bright Moon… with the trial" she bit her one of her knuckles, "I thought I might have had to keep it up."

Entrapta couldn't take her gaze off her towering green likeness. "Ivy," she said, analyzing the sculpture's components, "punctuated with violets, pansies, white daises, purple mountain flower and is that silent princess?"

"Yeah," Perfuma answered, "It glows at night – the flowers, I mean. People tell me that they like looking at the statue under the light of the moons."

Entrapta drew a small hand-mirror from one of her overalls-pockets. She looked in it, then back at the topiary.

"I crafted it from memory, so it might have… some mistakes."

"On the contrary. Your memory appears to be exact! And your artistic-prowess is impressive. I must study your brain, Perfuma."

"Let's not and say we did?" Perfuma said with an unnerved smile.

"Oh, I didn't say anything about taking it out of your head! Relax! I meant, like, spending more time with you, observing you as you grow your gardens, that kind of thing. Bow, stop the wagon."

"Whoa, Arrow! Easy, boy."

Entrapta pulled herself over the edge of the buckboard by her hair and wandered over to the foot of the memorial. She fell to her knees.

"Entrapta?" Perfuma asked.

"Hey, are you alright?" Bow inquired from the halted wagon. He swung off the seat and clipped a lead to Arrow's halter.

Entrapta ignored the sound of hooves and the feel of hot horse-breath behind her as Bow and Perfuma walked up to her. "Easy," Bow said to her, as if he was gentling his horse. He placed a hand on her shoulder lightly.

Entrapta usually displayed two main emotions: "Focused deeply upon work" and "The World is Just Awesome." At the moment, she was weeping, silent tears streaming down her cheeks, verging upon ugly-crying.

"All that time," she whispered, "All that time in the Fright Zone I thought you'd just ditched me… and this….THIS!"

"Well, I felt powerless," Perfuma explained. "Making sure you were remembered was all I could do."

Entrapta dried her eyes with a stray hair-tail. "I'm just not used to anybody caring about me – a lot, you know. Not since Mumsy and Daddums….well…the real ones."

"How long _were_ you hiding out in the walls when your integration experiment yielded unexpected results?" Bow asked. "I mean… when we first met? Glimmer, Adora and I don't know how long you had your tower's distress-beacon up."

"About a week," Entrapta sniffled.

"Oh, man…" He pondered this and sighed. "Remember…you don't have to be alone anymore, okay?"

"Eh, we should get going," Entrapta said, pulling herself off the ground, smiling like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. "The sooner I tune up that Runestone, the sooner the Whispering Woods barrier-forest will be fixed and fully functional, right? And if we're going back through it, maybe I can find that lost First Ones location…"

"Let's… not, just yet… just yet I mean," Bow stuttered. "I'm sure that She-Ra will be happy to show you around once you can get properly geared up for the dangers. We're just focusing on the Heart Blossom today."

"Yeah," Perfuma said nervously. "We'll save the detours – for now."

Entrapta hopped back into the wagon and Bow hitched Arrow back into the harness. Perfuma climbed in and they were off to join the rest of the caravan once again. The entire way out of the square, Entrapta never took her gaze off the topiary. 

* * *

"An absolute mess." That was the term that the guard-detail was using to describe what they'd been tasked with unloading around the Heart Blossom and its great tree.

"Pass me that soldering iron, will you Bow?" Entrapta asked, absorbed in work. "And that box of circuit-boards?"

"Well, I can't say that that I've ever watched someone build a super-computer from scratch before," Glimmer said as the Princess Alliance and the Bright Moon Guard gathered around Entrapta, who motioned with her hair that she wanted some space.

Perfuma watched nervously with her people. Adora stood by.

"Aye!" Perfuma squeaked as she watched Entrapta hook some wires and scaffolding into the great tree and into the spaces surrounding the Heart Blossom, itself.

"Remember," the chief of the guards reminded the technician, "If you do anything untoward or anything that even looks like sabotage, we have jurisdiction to take your life."

Glimmer winced and bit her lip. "Let's…not get overzealous, Rebekkah."

"Almost done with the setup!" Entrapta said from behind her welding mask. "I sure hope this works! I don't suppose I can leave all of this equipment here in the middle of the forest… It'll be as much fun to dismantle was it was setting up!"

"Alright," Glimmer said, nodding to the woman indicated as Rebekkah as she addressed Entrapta. "My mother would only part with one of these. Please be careful with it or I'm totally dead!"

"I doubt your mother would execute y-"

"I mean…grounded for life. Please, Entrapta, take this seriously."

Glimmer pulled a key on a chain from around her neck and opened a metal case that the guard handed to her. Entrapta's eyes sparkled and she came just short of drooling. She grabbed up the data-crystal and ran a finger lovingly down its edges.

"Ooooh…."

Glimmer answered the question she was about to ask for her. "NO, you may NOT keep it! It is an heirloom of the House of Bright Moon and you are allowed to borrow it only for today."

Entrapta immediately placed the crystal into a panel on the machine she'd just built and proceeded to hook small wires into it and to use a small multitool to piece circuitry into it. The Heart Blossom pulsed light. Everyone gathered gasped. Entrapta flipped up her mask and concentrated on a control-panel.

"Easy, easy now," she said.

"What?" Bow yelped. "Perfuma, are you okay?!"

Perfuma suddenly stiffened. A green and yellow glow enveloped her. Her eyes glowed.

"What's happening?" Adora asked. Swift Wind whinnied in alarm and pawed.

"I feel powerful," Perfuma answered. "I feel… alive!" She began to dance and everywhere her feet touched the earth, grass and tiny flowers bloomed. She pointed and vines sprouted everywhere she commanded. While this was her basic-power, everything was somehow more lush and verdant than ever before. She laughed and everyone dropped everything and followed her, even Entrapta, who was drawn away from her rig, notepad and pen in one tendril of hair and her recorder in the other.

"Heart Blossom Experiment, Day 1, Hour 1: Everything seems to be going as predicted – for once. Princess Perfuma of Plumeria is experiencing increased energy and heightened awareness. Increased levels of joy! She appears to have gained fertile feet. Time will tell if this is a temporary effect."

She took a seat on her hair and ambulated swiftly, following Perfuma as the latter laughed and leaped, dancing past the memorial-statue. Perfuma pointed and the "hair" portion of the topiary erupted in flowers in various shades of purple, highlighted in pink.

"I've wanted to get that finished!" she giggled, "but I couldn't quite get the wild roses to grow properly." She jumped past the wagons and started running toward the direction of the Whispering Woods' border, veering away from the Freedom Forest entry-point.

The entire Princess Alliance and the gathered guards stared in awe as Perfuma crouched to the ground and touched the earth with both open palms. The earth rumbled. Roots snaked up from the ground, parting the soil. They wended out, entwined with vines and moss as dead and broken trees were enlivened and sprouted new shoots which grew and formed strong trunks and limbs.

Bones shot up from the ground, broken skulls and rib-bones from long-dead forest creatures that had long been buried in the loam. Bits of some giant insect's exoskeleton erupted with new saplings.

"Hahahahahaha!" Perfuma laughed. "Take that, Hordiekins!"

"Hordiekins?" Adora asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I can feel….the ENTIRE forest!" Perfuma exclaimed. "All of the Whispering Woods! All of its plants! All of its creatures! It's coming back! It's coming back!"

The trees on the edge of the Wood suddenly burst out in flower. A wind flowed through the forest and the air was awash in falling pink and white petals, cherry-blossom and dogwood "snow." Leaves sprouted forth in greens and blues.

The gathered Etherians stared gasping "Oohs" and "Ahhs."

"It looks like the experiment is a success!" Entrapta chimed.

"Thank you," Perfuma said. "I think everything can be set back to normal, now. The forest is healed!" She wrapped an arm around Entrapta's shoulder. "Look, everyone! Thanks to Entrapta, the Whispering Woods are healed!"

People clapped and cheered. Honestly, Entrapta was wholly unused to this kind of attention and subtly shrank back against Perfuma.

Everyone snapped to as screams echoed through the forest. Startled birds, ones that had remained where they were despite the blossoming of the forest before, burst from the trees and bushes and there was the distinctive creak of large, emerging roots.

Adora swung herself onto Swift Wind. "Over there!" she commanded, hanging on tight with her thighs and peering into the distance.

Perfuma knelt upon the ground, keeping her fingers to the earth. An object came into view beyond the trees, carried by the animate roots.

Emily and her battalion of mini-tanks poised themselves behind Entrapta as if they sensed something.

"Yeah, I think it looks familiar, too," she said back to them.

A pair of huge oaks parted and an enormous Horde tank tumbled tail-over-head into view on the newly-broken earth. A pair of human-voiced screams echoed from inside. Perfuma sent up vines from the earth to grab the tank's cannon. She stood up, grit her teeth and the cannon bent, the vines breaking with it, their job achieved. Adora landed Swift Wind and let him step forward. She had her sword at the ready, poised to become She-Ra and to possibly deal some damage at any moment.

Roots and vines wended up and pried off the entry-port of the tank. A pair of young women tumbled over themselves and out and onto the moist dirt.

"Hey! Ouch! That was my tail!"

"What are you talking about? That was MY tail!"

"Um… Hey Adora," Catra tried to say in a taunting manner, but it came out all wrong considering that she was stuck under a splayed-out Scorpia.

"Hi-yee!" Scorpia said with a wave of a claw.

Swift Wind snorted.

"How could I have guessed that you two would somehow show up?" Adora huffed.

Catra and Scorpia managed to pick themselves up and dust themselves off. "We've been watching your movements for some time now. We're here to retrieve our technician." Catra announced. "Just surrender her to us and we'll be on our way. No need for a full-scale battle today."

"What, you mean Entrapta?" Adora asked.

"Who else?"

"She's back with us now!" Glimmer announced.

"Really?" Catra turned her gazed to the mentioned Princess. "Entrapta, why would you come back to these losers? They left you." Catra paced about and turned on her toes, flicking her tail. "It's just like Adora… jerking her friends around, leaving them…"

"No!" Entrapta spoke up, balancing herself on her ponytails. "You see, it was all a misunderstanding! They didn't really leave me."

"Didn't really leave you?" Scorpia asked, "Then, what were you doing crawling around the vents of the Fright Zone?"

"Well, you see," Entrapta tried to explain, curling a pair of small hair-tendrils in front of her face and looking sheepish, "They'd sort of thought I'd been killed?"

"What?!" Scorpia yelped, "That's so awful!"

"Yes, it was," Mermista retorted, wrinkling her nose. "But we know she's alive now and she's rejoined us."

"Do they have any idea what you did? For the Horde – for us?" Catra accused.

"Um….yes," Entrapta said, shame-faced for a moment. An instant later, her eyes brightened. "But it's all water under the bridge now! We totally worked it out!"

Catra curled her fingers and inspected her claws. "So you're saying that, for the time-being, they find you _useful_. Pity, pity, poor Entrapta. Taken in by these…Princesses. You were advancing so well with the Horde's technology. Don't tell me that you're willing to throw it all away. We were accomplishing so much together – you know, the three of us. Think of the progress!"

"Don't listen to her, Entrapta!" Adora pleaded. "We're all with you!"

Entrapta looked between one set of her friends and the other set of her friends.

"We miss you!" Scorpia said with a big smile. "We've been totally worried, haven't we, Catra?"

"I don't know if I can go back," Entrapta confessed. "I mean, what with all the divulging Horde-secrets to the Rebellion… Won't Hordak have my head on a pike by sundown if I come back?"

"Don't worry about Hordak," Catra said. "He's wanted you back, too…and frankly, who cares what he thinks? I'm running this operation."

"I learned how to make mini pizza-bagels!" Scorpia offered. "And tiny brownies!"

The remainder of the Princess Alliance all stood at either side of Entrapta, ready to defend her.

"They _are_ offering snacks…" Entrapta considered.

Glimmer smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. "We can make you anything you want in the Bright Moon castle-kitchens!" she groused, "And, in Dryl, you have your staff."

"I know," Entrapta replied, "But it's still a kind offer. Scorpia's cared for me since I met her… and she and Catra let me do anything I want around the Fright Zone. I kind of miss them, actually."

"Yeah, come on! Come back to the winning side!" Scorpia cheered.

"Winning?" Perfuma interjected. "Your tank is in tatters. And where is your army?"

"Right behind us," Catra said with a glare and grit fangs. "We're taking our technician back whether you like it or not – whether SHE likes it or not!"

The roots rumbled again, bringing with them dismembered parts of Horde robot-soldiers. Catra scowled. Perfuma gave her a smug smirk.

Meanwhile, Entrapta climbed aboard Emily, seeking safety in the friend she had literally made.

The Princesses and the Horde Force Captains stood in a stalemate.


	9. Of Fate and Free Will

**Trapped**

 **Chapter 9: Of Fate and Free Will**

Catra stood on one side of the clearing, facing off with Adora. Scorpia stood behind her, ready for a fight. The Princess Alliance stood glaring at her. Bright Moon's soldiers fanned out into the woods to inspect for any backup that Perfuma hadn't destroyed.

Entrapta moved away from them on Emily and watched. "No one has to fight over me," she said softly.

"Come on home," Catra drawled.

"She is home!" Glimmer retorted.

Adora transformed.

"Entrapta has the freedom to choose what she wants!" She-Ra announced.

"But… I thought she was with us?" Bow inquired.

"Come on! Come on!" Entrapta said as Emily nervously jostled and pawed, "I'm… not used to any of this!"

"You're not taking her back! She doesn't want to go!" Perfuma shouted.

"Oh, come ON!" Catra growled. "Entrapta, are you going to give up Horde-tech for this? Rainbows and magic and unicorn-farts? All these pretty-pretty Princesses who you _know_ you'll never fit in with?"

"Hey!" Swift Wind snorted.

"You fit in with the misfits!" Scorpia shouted happily.

"It is true that they find me a tad vexing," Entrapta confessed, penting her fingers.

The Princesses turned to her with a collective gasp.

"Don't think I haven't noticed it," she said. "My tendency to just go off and do my own thing…None of you really share my interests, except for Bow… And I know you just sort of see me as odd. Everybody does. In fact, I'm beginning to think that no one really stood up for me until you thought I'd died and that you're only for me because that shocked your systems. It's a reasonable hypothesis." She backed way two Emily-steps. "None of you really understand what I want to do…with knowledge. I want to find all of the cracks in the world and how it fits together! I just want to know how things work – I don't really think too much about the ethical quandaries. I don't know if they are really worth it, in the end?"

"They are," She-Ra said.

Perfuma looked up with tear-edged eyes.

"I kind of tried to take the planet apart, didn't I?" Entrapta said to both of them. "I'm making amends here, but the truth is that I don't really regret the Black Garnet experiment. If I can take something apart, I can put it back together, right?"

"You just aided the Heart Blossom," Perfuma reminded her.

"I can put it back together better, stronger, more efficient… if only I get to know how it works!"

Mermista bid Perfuma to stand aside. She stood before Emily and looked up at Entrapta. "Do you want to know the truth?" she said.

"Here it comes," Catra said with a grin and a nod to Scorpia.

Mermista stood firm. "The truth is, OF COUSE we find you annoying! We can't understand half of what you say most of the time! You keep disappearing at the most inconvenient times and there's just… so much about you that's, kinda creepy. Ugh."

Entrapta sat where she was, shocked. All of the other Princesses also stood, appalled.

"Shut up!" Perfuma growled.

"But you know what?" Mermista continued, ignoring Perfuma. "We're ALL annoying! Look at Perfuma here. She's all 'Oooh, I don't know how I'm going to fight the Horde! My people are pacifists! And she's ditzy as all get-out! And Glimmer – the brat…"

"Hey!" Glimmer yelped.

"The bratty little non-ruling Princess who just charges in and wants to kick everyone's tail with sparkles! And there's her mother – Queen Angella is just a big ball of depression! Adora's all 'Look at me! I'm She-Ra, but I don't even know how to use half the sword's supposed powers yet! Bow, well, okay, I cant' find anything wrong with Bow…"

Bow grinned.

"Okay, maybe that stupid grin!" Mermista sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Don't even get me started on Sea Hawk."

"You called, M'lady?"

"Ugggh! Anyway, Entrapta… I'm annoying, too. I'm blunt. I have problems caring about much of anything. My point is that _we are all_ irritating. We all have quirks and we all have flaws and we're all going to grate on each other at one time or another. That's what makes us a _family_. All families are screwed up! We all care about each other and stick together, anyway!"

"That's right!" Perfuma chimed.

"Well, OF COURSE!" said Glimmer.

"Right!" Bow and Sea Hawk said together, giving a mutual fist-pump.

"Mermista is, as she says, blunt," She-Ra said, "But she's right. The Princess Alliance is a family and you're a part of it. Please?"

"You aren't just saying this because you find my skills useful and wish to exploit them?" Entrapta queried.

"Well, we do find your skills useful," Bow said, stepping forward, "but what we really want from you is _you_. You're our friend. And… look at me, I'm your fanboy!"

"Come on, you geek," Mermista concluded with a warm smile.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Catra hissed. "Why is everyone in a love-circle? I said that we're taking her back!"

Catra lunged straight for Adora. She parried and Catra used her agility to dodge the Sword of Protection and round on her. Perfuma shot out vines, which she jumped and flipped over. Mermista got her full in the face with a jet of water, but Catra shrugged it off. Swift Wind gave a mighty whinny and reared up, pawing at the enemy with flashing hooves.

Scorpia looked up sadly to Entrapta. "I considered you family, too," she said before running into the fray to assist Catra. She gave Sea Hawk a right-hook. Bow gave a yelp as she stung him in the leg.

"Who do I fight for, Emily?" Entrapta asked her robot desperately.

Glimmer teleported in front of her, landing atop her mount, holding out her staff. Catra was flipping through the air, headed right for them and Glimmer parried her. Claws flashed for Glimmer's throat as Glimmer pummeled the cat-girl in the gut. Entrapta tipped right off of Emily into the dirt. She caught her fall with her hair and the mini-tanks surrounded her.

Catra came up behind her and grabbed her by a hank of hair, pulling roughly. "You have to come with us!"

"Aaaaah!" Entrapta's other hair-tail slammed her, her own eyes wide with fear. She managed to slip away from Catra, leaving a few stray hairs in her claws.

"Don't do that, Catra!" Scorpia called, "You don't want to hurt her!"

Catra's eyes gleamed as she gave chase – in full predator-mode now. Entrapta was sure that she was going to tie her up and drag her back to the Fright Zone and she wanted none of it.

She also heard and saw the sword-clash and the magic as the Alliance was being taken on by Scorpia and as they intercepted Catra.

"Update to log," she said, pressing record on her device, "The idea of avoiding combat is looking mighty good about now."

She managed to find Bow and help him to his feet. "Don't worry," she assured him. "I've studied Scorpia's paralyzing-agent. It doesn't last for very long."

"Thanks," he said, leaning on her stiffened hair as he limped.

He helped him to the edge of the treeline, where she eased him to sit down in a safe, shady area. The young man squinted and took out his bow, wondering if he could get in any decent shots into the enemy-line from a sitting position. It wasn't just Catra and Scorpia now. Some Horde soldiers came up from the rear, living ones, in armor.

The Plumerians were in the mix now, as well as Bright Moon's soldiers.

"It seems that this has turned into a full-scale battle," Entrapta observed. "Fascinating."

"We won't let them take you," Bow assured. "We just got you back."

Entrapta turned her head as she heard a scream. "Kyle?" she wondered aloud.

"That scrawny kid I met when I was imprisoned?" Bow asked. "I kind of liked him. He seemed too good for the Horde."

"He and the lizard-guy he's always hanging around with brought me stuff from the scrap yard," Entrapta said with some affection. "He was super-helpful. I hope he's okay."

"The numbness is starting to go away," Bow announced. Entrapta kept a guard-vigil over him as she watched Scorpia punch She-Ra in the nose and She-Ra return the favor by kicking the Princess of the Crimson Waste in the chest.

"Stay here," Entrapta said to Bow as she stood up and walked calmly toward the melee. Bow expected her to fight, but she kept her hair limp. "Emily!" she called.

The robot-tank immediately scuttled to her side along with its "children." None of them had fired a single shot or had attempted to fight in any way. Bow assumed it was because of the loyalty-programming that Entrapta had built them with. They wouldn't do anything except by her orders.

The small engineer clambered aboard Emily and the robot suddenly made a screeching noise – like an alarm.

"Everybody, stop!" Entrapta shouted.

Taken aback by the strange noise that had just sounded, everyone paused. Perfuma had Scorpia entangled in vines and lifted up off the ground. Kyle, the scrawny blond Horde trainee was cowering before Sea Hawk, who had him by the uniform-collar and had a fist suspended in mid-punch, stopping just short of the unfortunate (and bruised) boy's face. Rogelio, the huge lizard-man Hordesman, was practically bench-pressing Mermista. She-Ra had a claw-gash on her left cheek and was holding Catra by the mane. Bright Moon soldiers had their moon-shaped spears aimed at the necks of Hordesmen. Hordesmen stood over Plumerians and Bright Moon guards with their taser-batons.

The scene froze, just like that.

"I have made my decision!" Entrapta announced.

"Huh?" She-Ra enquired. "I thought you'd made it already. You're with the Rebellion."

"Does it look like I'm fighting?" Entrapta asked. "So, anyway… I've decided that I don't like this. I don't like this at all! I like everyone in the Princess Alliance. I also like Catra and Scorpia."

"Catra was MANIPULATING YOU!" She-Ra shot back.

"Was not!" Catra lied. "What do you think Adora was doing to you?"

"I'm really not used to this much attention," Entrapta sagely said. "I'm also kinda tired of it. Toodles!"

"Wait, what?" Bow yelped.

"I'm just gonna go back home to Dryl, and all of you can stop fighting over me, okay?" Entrapta said, as chipper as the dawn.

"Wait, what, really?" Glimmer asked incredulously, "After your pardon? After everything? You're quitting the Rebellion?"

"Yep!"

"So you're coming back to the Horde!" Catra said with a fist-pump and her eyes still on She-Ra. Neither of them had moved from their fighting-positions. "In your face, Adora!"

"Nope!"

"It isn't exactly a request…" Catra drawled. "Hordak wants you."

"Well, then," Entrapta said, "You'll have to disappoint him."

She tapped Emily and the robot swiftly ambulated toward the Heart Blossom. Entrapta quickly plucked the crystal from the console with her hair and dropped it into her overalls pocket. The Heart Blossom stopped glowing, powering down to its normal level.

"Oh, and I'm keeping this. I wish to study it. This is buckoo First Ones tech!"

"But you can't!" Glimmer whined.

"Oh, I can!" Entrapta responded, stroking Emily's casing. "I can totally ship it back to Bright Moon once I figure out all of its secrets," she said, "Or I can just keep it because I'll make better use out of it."

"I told you that it's not for playing with!"

"Relax! Your mother will forgive you and it's for the sake of science. Now, I'm off to Dryl. Nobody follow me."

"Yeah, right!" Catra said, claws bared, ready to pounce.

"Emily…"

Everyone paused as they heard the robot-tank charge up her canon. Scorpia cringed and took a protective stance in front of Catra. She-Ra turned her sword into a shield. The mini-tanks made whirring sounds like they were charging up all of their little canons.

"Well, I feel… betrayed!" Sea Hawk announced.

"I'm… I'm sorry!" - Entrapta was crying. "I didn't want it to be this way! I liked having friends…for a while."

"We're still…your friends…" Perfuma said.

"I…I can't… I just can't," Entrapta said, shaking her head. "If you'll excuse me…" She flipped down her welding mask and turned Emily sharply around.

The robot-tanks turned and scuttled off past the treeline of the Freedom Forest. A few of them turned back with menacing glares of light to remind any potential followers that they had their canons armed.

Everyone stared after them and at the back of the girl upon the larger tank, dumbfounded.

Perfuma reached out a hand helplessly. "Entrapta… please! Come back!"


	10. The Lonely Kingdom

**Trapped**

 **Epilogue: The Lonely Kingdom**

The world went on with its war between the Horde and the Rebellion – small skirmishes here and there, dash and runs and with the Whispering Woods protecting Bright Moon, the center of Rebellion-operations. Sometimes the Rebellion gained ground. Sometimes the Horde gained it back. Nothing much had changed except for the rumors of She-Ra's heroic deeds.

The small kingdom of Dryl, however, had practically disappeared from the map. Everyone knew that it still existed, but they had trouble finding it. Every traveler attempting to enter would take the roads that had once led to the borders of the kingdom only to find themselves in a shifting landscape. Rockslides were common, but just as easily, caravans, emissaries and various other missionaries would find themselves simply lost in mountains that suddenly became labyrinths, pathways suddenly blocked by landscape features that were not there before and the horizons blending into the sky. They'd be forced to turn around and go back the way they'd come or risk being lost forever.

It was said that the nation of Dryl was now surrounded by a powerful illusion-fence, much like the Kingdom of Halfmoon. This was the explanation that made the most sense for why people couldn't find it. Not even Halfmoon's caravans, filled with illusion-specialist mages could find an inroad.

It was obvious that its ruler did not want to be bothered.

There was no further contact with either the Rebellion or the Horde from Entrapta or any of her servants or government officials. As the months and even years wended on, nobody saw so much as a stray-robot exit the craggy mountains where everyone knew Dryl was hidden.

* * *

She watched the rain from a high tower window and studied the patterns of the lightning streaking across the sky. Entrapta wondered about ways she could harness and use it – not that she hadn't tried such experiments before, but she knew that she had to be careful if she wanted to tap into that much of nature's energy. The frying of circuits was not an option. The frying of bones even less so.

A robot-servant brought her a tiny cake which she ate casually, not taking her eyes off the world outside the window. It was open, letting the storm-breeze in. The rain was cold, but not icy. The lights of Dryl's main city shined in the distance in the dim late-afternoon storm-light, beyond the gaps in the hills, well beyond the lonesome castle in the mining-district.

None of the flying-drones came back with any news of sightings of either Horde or Rebellion activities beyond the borders. The latest upgrade to the fence-system must have been working especially well.

The soft scuff of a boot hit the stone-tiled floor. Entrapta whipped around, startled, expecting to come face-to-face with one of her servants. After all, her waiter-bot had forgotten to bring up the cola she'd requested.

"Hey, what?" she yelped. "She-Ra, what brings you here?" She brought her hair up defensively.

"I was having a ride on Swifty and saw… well, a hole in the sky about a half-mile north of here. When the sky is suddenly two different colors, that's just weird. We checked it out and wound up here. I thought I'd drop in."

"Illusion Fence Experiment Log, Day 324" Entrapta said into a recorder, seeming to ignore her uninvited guest for the time being, "There seems to be a glitch in the northerly fence. Must have it inspected and repaired as soon as possible."

She turned back to She-Ra. "Sooo," she said, penting a pair of hair-tendrils, "You're in your abnormally tall form right now, Adora… I don't suppose even that explains how you got to the highest tower of Castle Dryl. You ought to be lost in the labyrinth… or in one of the water cisterns, or in a cage. Is Glimmer with you?" She pulled out the recorder again. "Note to self: Do a run of the gauntlet again, check efficacy of the traps."

"No, Glimmer isn't with me. I'm here alone. And, I'm afraid I broke a few things. I'm sure it's nothing you can't fix." Adora powered down and rubbed the back of her neck.

"It should be clear that I don't want company."

"We're…worried about you, Entrapta," Adora cautiously said. "All of us."

"I hope you aren't trying to recruit me again. I'm done with the war."

"We could really use you."

There was that word again – _use_. Adora covered her mouth when she saw Entrapta wince a little.

"I mean, we miss you." Adora quickly recovered.

"I'm happy here. It's like it was before," Entrapta explained. "Not so complicated. I've got my super-helpful robots and inventions and projects I'm working on." She bounced on her hair. "Ooh, and we've been finding so much new, neat stuff in the mine! I theorize that there's an entire First Ones city down there… if only we can find the doorway beyond the rock!"

"Well, you know," Adora said sheepishly, "We haven't seen you since… that battle in Plumeria. We haven't even heard from you in months!"

"Oh, I know, I know," Entrapta said, ambulating on her hair in the form of a seat over to Adora. "But no one needs to worry about me, I'm fine! I figured out how the Halfmoon fence works… it took a little quick-rigging, and, well, the Horde stays out of Dryl because they can't even find it! The other kingdoms don't bother me either! No worries about getting into another war or losing my head because I can do Runestone hacks! All because of the fence and other things I've got going on with landscape modulation. Neat, huh?"

"Yeah… neat."

"I leave everyone alone and they leave me alone. They have to, now. And no one fights over me or my work. I think it works out."

The two young women stood still and watched the rain for several minutes. It fell harder.

"Everyone…" Adora began slowly, "They're okay. Glimmer and her mother are communicating better. Sea Hawk has taken to piracy – well, raiding Horde ships to commandeer supplies for the Rebellion. The Whispering Woods is stronger than ever. Plumeria's had a surplus-harvest that they're sharing with Bright Moon so the villages and the army won't go hungry. Thaymor's completely rebuilt. The alliance with the Magicats is going well. The Kingdom of Snows, well… Frosta's fully on our side now – she's joined the Princess Alliance. Bow's been experimenting with bomb-arrows – he blew up the west garrison wall last week, you should have been there, it was hilarious. I think Queen Angella shed a few feathers when she yelled at him."

"Longer fuses," Entrapta suggested. "So they don't explode before you want them to. Maybe a timer."

"You don't have to come back if you don't want to."

"Good."

"Aren't you lonely here?"

"I always have been. Like I said, I'm fine."

"I'm not going to try to bring you back to the Rebellion or the Alliance," Adora said. "But I do… want to be your friend."

Entrapta turned and regarded her with a quizzical gaze.

"And I don't want to drop in uninvited. Is it okay if I just… hang out every once in a while?"

"Where is your horse?" Entrapta asked. "I don't suppose he enjoys this weather."

"Your stable-man robot directed him to the stable. I didn't know you had robot-horses. That's pretty cool."

"A robot-unicorn, too. I built them all when was studying the bio-mechanics of equines. Emily usually hangs out in the stable. I pretty much let her and the babies have the run of the castle."

"Swifty is a little… unnerved, but he'll be fine," Adora said with a smile.

"Tiny cupcake?" Entrapta asked as she clapped her hands and the waiter-robot wheeled off.

Adora found a place to sit. "I'm here now, if you just want to talk."

Entrapta smiled and out came the recorder. "Update to Log: Rethink repairing the glitch in the northern sky-fence. Engineer super-secret doorway for She-Ra and her steed. I want to keep the kingdom hidden, but She-Ra is allowed to visit at any time."

Adora just smiled.

Entrapta smoothly smiled back. "Perhaps if it's on my terms… I can give the friendship experiment another shot." 

* * *

**END.**


End file.
